Este estudo pretende demonstrar a relação entre os meios visuais e a transmissão de conhecimento por meio da linguagem visual. A partir de uma análise feita em diversos vitrais existentes em Catedrais da Idade Média nota-se que a linguagem visual ocupou um papel especial no ensino do homem medievo. Serão estudadas as diversas figuras simbólicas existentes nos vitrais e como se tornaram instrumento para a transmissão de conceitos históricos, sociais e religiosos, no ambiente medieval das catedrais. Considera-se a história do período compreendido entre o final da Alta idade média e durante a Baixa idade média no que diz respeito ao ambiente religioso e sua importância na transmissão de conhecimento ao homem medieval. A história dos vitrais, sua origem, seus usos e como vieram a ser incorporados às construções das Catedrais Medievais, estudando um caso específico: Os Vitrais da Catedral de York um dos maiores acervos de vitrais em catedrais medievais. O propósito da pesquisa é relacionar elementos artísticos da arquitetura, no caso os vitrais, com o processo de transmissão de conhecimento no ambiente medieval, isto com o auxílio da História como interface principal. Objetiva-se também o estudo onomástico e toponímico do espaço da Catedral, importante para a compreensão do estudo dos vitrais como meio linguístico. / This study aims to demonstrate the relationship between visual media and transmission of knowledge through visual language. From an analysis of several existing windows in cathedrals of the Middle Ages is noted that the visual language has occupied a special role in the teaching of medieval man. Will be studied several existing symbolic figures in the windows and how to become an instrument for the transmission of historical concepts, social and religious environment of medieval cathedrals. This research analyzes the story of the period between the end of the High Middle Ages and during the Low Middle Ages with regard to the religious environment and its importance in the transmission of knowledge to the medieval man. The history of stained glass, its origin, its uses and how they came to be incorporated into the buildings of the Medieval Cathedrals, studying a specific case: \"The stained glass of York Minster\" one of the largest collections of stained glass in medieval Cathedrals. The purpose of the research is to relate the artistic elements of architecture, where the stained glass windows, with the process of transmission of knowledge in medieval environment with the aid of history as the main interface. It also aims to study the onomastic and toponymic space of the cathedral, important for understanding the study of stained glass as a medium language.

A poliamida 6.6 é um dos mais importantes membros da família das poliamidas, principalmente pelas excelentes propriedades de engenharia, como desempenho mecânico e térmico. A sua área de aplicação é ampliada pela adição de cargas inorgânicas. Dentre estas cargas podemos destacar as fibras de vidro, talco, wollastonita e micro esferas de vidro, cargas estas industrialmente conhecidas. Por outro lado, partículas de vidro reciclado provenientes de descarte nunca foram estudadas como reforço de poliamida 6.6, em especial as partículas menores, que são rejeitadas na reciclagem pela indústria do vidro por apresentarem dificuldade de transporte para os fornos, podendo depositar-se nos refratários (fenômeno de arraste), aumentando sua taxa de corrosão, assim reduzindo a vida útil dos fornos. Além disso, essas partículas têm formato irregular. Desse modo, compósitos de poliamida 6.6 reforçados com porcentagens variadas de vidro reciclado e cargas usualmente empregadas pela indústria foram processados em laboratório, com o auxílio de uma extrusora dupla-rosca e as amostras avaliadas foram obtidas por injeção. As seguintes propriedades dos compósitos foram avaliadas: resistência à tração, alongamento na ruptura, módulo na tração, resistência ao impacto Charpy sem entalhe, estabilidade dimensional e microscopia eletrônica de varredura. Os resultados indicam que é possível utilizar-se partículas de vidro reciclado numa matriz de PA-6.6 uma vez que as propriedades do compósito final são compatíveis com aquelas proporcionadas pelas cargas comerciais usualmente empregadas. / Polyamide 6.6 is one of the most important members of the polyamide family, mainly for its excellent engineering properties such as good mechanical and thermal performances. Its application area is enlarged by the addition of inorganic fillers. Among these fillers, glass fibers, talc, wollastonite and glass microspheres could be highlighted, which are industrially known fillers. On the other hand, glass particles from glass cullet have never been studied as a polyamide reinforcement, specially the smaller particles, which are rejected by the glass industry because of the carry-over phenomenon, increasing the cost of the smoke washing, as well as the possibility of increasing refractory corrosion, therefore reducing the useful life of the furnaces. Furthermore, these particles present irregular shapes. In this research, polyamide 6.6 composites, reinforced with different percentages of recycled powder glass and other common fillers used by the industry, were processed in laboratory scale with the help of a double screw extruder. Specimens for testing were obtained by injection, and the following composite properties were evaluated: tensile strength, elongation at rupture, elastic modulus, notchless Charpy impact strength, and dimensional stability. The specimens were also observed in a scanning electron microscope. The results indicated that it is possible to use particles of recycled glass in a PA- 6.6 matrix, once the final composite properties are compatible to the ones of composites containing usual commercial fillers.

The stability of glass is linked to its composition and the atmosphere controls its alteration. The organic pollutants emitted by wooden showcases play a role in the alteration of historic glasses. This study examines the effects of acetic acid, formic acid and formaldehyde on objects from the National Museums of Scotland and on replica glasses aged artificially, all with a soda silicate composition. Composition was determined by electron microprobe and analytical decomposition of the Raman spectra was used to establish correlations between glass structure and composition. This allowed interpretation of the structural variations between bulk and altered glass. The structure of the glasses altered by pollutants is characteristic of an alteration by selective leaching, with transformation of the silicates linked to alkali into silanols, which subsequently underwent condensation reactions to form a more polymerised structure. The SIMS concentration profiles of glass aged in artificial and real atmospheres were used to follow the alteration evolution as a function of time, humidity and pollutant concentration. The water film formed by the humidity at the surface and its acidity control the alteration by leaching of alkali and hydration of the glass. Formaldehyde does not act on the leaching reaction while acids accelerate and amplify it. In mixed polluted atmosphere, formates compounds always predominate in the film even at low formic acid concentration. The humidity and temperature fluctuations in museums maintain the leaching reaction. Knowledge of the harmful effect of organic acid pollutants in the alteration of soda silicate glasses will help improve their conservation.

In this thesis, nanosecond pulsed lasers are used as the tools to generate microstructures on metal and glass. The applications of these structures are described too. The production of micro structures is demonstrated using diode-pumped solid state (DPSS) Nd:YVO4 lasers operating at wavelengths of 532nm or 1064 nm. The laser fluence and scanning speed are important parameters to control the results. The first part of thesis is on the laser generation of microstructures on metal surfaces. Copper (Cu) and titanium (Ti) have been studied. According to the reflectivity of metals, Cu is processed by a 532nm laser and Ti is processed by a 1064nm laser. It is shown that the periods of surface microstructures are highly dependent on the hatch distance (overlapping distance between laser scanning). Only if the laser fluence is greater than a threshold, may the microstructures on metals be induced. The thresholds are measured by the diameters of ablated areas at different fluence. Laser generated surface microstructures have been applied to modify the reflectivity of a Cu sample. It was found that laser induced surface microstructures on Copper can decrease the surface reflectivity by almost 97% between 250 nm and 700 nm. To find the mechanism of how to form microstructure on metal surface with laser, laser ablation and heating models have been studied. The 1D ablated numerical model is calculated in Matlab. The pressure of metal vapour is an important parameter, as it pushes the melted metal out of surface to form microstructures after re-solidification. The second part of thesis is on glass welding with microstructures on glass surfaces. The soda-lime glasses containing silver nanoparticles (from the company Codixx) have been studied and welded with Schott B270 glass. Compared with other techniques for welding glass, lasers offer the advantage of a relatively simple and flexible technique for joining the local area underneath the cover glass. Most of the laser energy is deposited in the Ag nanoparticle layer because of the large absorption coefficient at 532 nm. Expanded microstructures generated by the laser are applied to fill the gap between the glass surfaces. This is attributed to the formation of bubbles in the Ag nanoparticle layer after laser processing. The welded samples have the joint strength of 4.9 MPa and have great potential for industrial applications. A 3D analytical model is used to estimate the temperature of the glass after the laser pulse. The increase in temperature is about 129 °C. To induce the bubble in glass, many laser pulses are necessary. This is very different from the results for the metals.

Metallic glass matrix composites have enormous potential stemming from the interplay between crystalline and amorphous phases. This work models such a composite using shear transformation zone dynamics (a modified kinetic Monte Carlo method) for the amorphous phase, and a local Taylor dislocation model for the crystalline phase. An N-factorial experiment using the model is presented examining the effects of crystalline volume fraction, microstructure length scale, and yield stress of the crystalline phase. Each replicate is analyzed for maximum stress, maximum strain, strain energy dissipation, strain localization, and strain partitioning between phases. Regression analysis is used to identify statistically-significant trends in the data. The experiment shows that strain delocalization and the consequent ductility are facilitated by a crystalline phase with a substantially lower yield stress than that of the amorphous matrix. It also shows that increasing crystalline volume fraction alone is insufficient to promote strain delocalization in the case of a crystalline phase with high relative yield stress, and that a lower yield stress for the crystalline phase implies lower maximum stresses supported by the composite. Therefore designers must balance the need for ductility and delocalization against the composite yield stress by finding an optimal combination of volume fraction and crystalline mechanical properties. This work provides continuous functional forms for the relationships between these properties to aid in that optimization process.

Tese de Mestrado Integrado. Mestrado em Engenharia Civil (Construções). Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 2013

Artist statement Nao Yamamoto The environment I grew up in allowed me to cultivate an appreciation for both contemporary art and traditional craft, and I still respect the Japanese culture. However, experiencing contemporary art based on a different society and environment changed my perspective and I felt like it took me beyond the narrow culture of Japan. Since I recognized my art as a way to represent myself, or even to have conversations with tnyself, I became devoted to a contemporary art practice. It has been so exciting to see my thoughts made visual and how I've been changed by creating my art. I have long created my pieces based on the simple beauty of glass. I was looking fof a way to emphasize what I see in it. During the glassblowing process, I would . sometimes see the molten glass as a creature that has a consciousness that tries to challenge my skill or mastery. This idea helped me to create a different body of work which represented my experience or relationship with glass sculpture rather than the materiality of glass. Now glass has become not only a material, but also my fickle friend which. reflects my inspiration and concentration. I believe that there is nothing that compares with the beauty of nature. For me it is overwhelming because any life form doesn't think about the meaning of life, but only thinks about surviving. When I am at a beach, in a forest, or in the middle of a desert, the simple, pure, clean force of life in nature inspires me to just live, strongly but simply. I believe we have lost that n~tion in complicated contemporary lives. What I atn trying to do is to reinterpret elements from nature to celebrate the power of life, both in its significance and in its insignificance.

The selfie has become the currency of today; boldly stating: I was here, this is how I felt, and, most importantly, I exist. This has become our self-reflection. Exploring the self-portrait, as have countless artists of the past, Johnny Shield uses the various selfies as reference for his sculptural works - both empty vessels and sculptural busts. Made from glass these fragile objects are all doomed to break. You, the viewer, are witnessing a truly damned object: the central portrait uneasily rests on a pedestal that is actively electrolytically corroding. While on display, this pedestal will lean more and more precariously, ultimately spilling the glass portrait onto the ground. By participating in the legacy of self-portraiture but producing a self-destructive object, Johnny is simultaneously endorsing and condemning the sacredness of the art object, the selfie, as well as the practice of glorifying the artist.

Photopolymerization, which uses light rather than heat to initiate polymerization, is a facile technique used to fabricate adhesives, protective coatings, thin films, photo-resists, dental restoratives, and other materials. Epoxide monomers, which are polymerized via cationic photoinitiation, have received less attention in fundamental research in comparison to free radical polymerized acrylate monomers. The characterization of propagation mechanisms, network structures, and physical properties is yet lacking. This project focused on the reactivity and physical properties of 3,4-epoxycyclohexylmethyl-3,4-epoxycyclohexane carboxylate (EEC), and the kinetic and physical effects of chain transfer agents (CTAs) in EEC based formulations were characterized. This characterization was carried out using real-time Raman spectroscopy, real-time infrared spectroscopy, dynamic mechanical analysis, simple gel fraction measurements, and atomic force microscopy. The effects of water, organic alcohols, processing conditions (e.g., UV light intensity, humidity, post-illumination curing temperature), and photoinitiation systems were investigated. In general, increasing the concentration of CTAs in a crosslinking epoxide resin increases the rate of polymerization and the overall epoxide conversion level. High CTA levels also correspond to lower glass transition temperatures (Tg) and lower crosslink densities. A post-illumination annealing was critical in obtaining stable physical properties for high Tg epoxide materials. In addition, humidity (water being the most universal contaminant type of CTA) was found to impact the surface properties of an epoxide polymer negatively by reducing the surface hardness. Hybrid acrylate-epoxide systems are much more complex and unpredictable in curing behavior. The use of hydroxy acrylates in hybrid systems allows for grafting between the epoxide and the acrylate domains, via the AM mechanism. Another intricacy of hybrid systems is the initiation system. In order to maximize the conversion of both the epoxide and the acrylate moieties, the free-radical photoinitiator must not hinder the polymerization of the epoxide monomer. Some very efficient free-radical photoinitiators limit the epoxide polymerization by absorbing the majority of the deep-UV incident photons. Finally, a renewable acrylate oligomer was synthesized to provide a green alternative to petroleum-based oligomers currently used. The oligomer was freely miscible and readily photopolymerized with a wide range of commercial monomers. The Tg relationship between the commercial monomers and the parent resin followed the Fox equation. The results of this research provide strategies for controlling epoxide kinetics and physical properties in neat and hybrid systems. This information is useful for tailoring resin formulations to specific end-use applications, especially in films, coatings, and adhesives. Hybrid epoxide-acrylate photopolymerization affords the unique opportunity to structure polymer networks in time and to engineer advanced material properties. These hybrid systems are based on formulations that contain both an epoxide moiety, which undergoes cationic ring-opening photopolymerization, and an acrylate moiety, which undergoes free-radical photopolymerization. Through the combination of these two independent reactive systems, hybrid polymers exhibit lower sensitivity to oxygen and moisture and offer advantages such as increased cure speed and improved film-forming properties. The ability to design the polymer network architecture and to tune mechanical properties can be realized through control of the cationic active center propagation reaction relative to the cationic chain transfer reaction. Specifically, grafted polymer networks can be developed through the covalent bonding of the epoxide chains to the acrylate chains via hydroxyl substituents. This work demonstrates the formation of these grafted polymer networks and overviews the physical properties obtained through control of hydroxyl content and hybrid formulation composition.

Science and technology (S&T) disciplines at universities are still largely dominated by men, and few women are found in the highest employment ranks. Using the faculty data from Utah State University, this thesis explores the factors that help explain the difference in career trajectory between men and women in the S&T colleges. While there were few women in S&T colleges prior to the 1990s, more women have been hired since then, and the lower ranks of the faculty corps are starting to reflect the gender composition of the doctoral degree holders in the different fields. This is not the case for full professors and leadership positions, where women are still underrepresented. Analysis of the university careers of faculty in S&T colleges revealed that in the absence of formal guidelines, promotions to full professor were inconsistent, but men were generally promoted faster, especially when hired as associate professors. However, conscious measures by the university to make the promotion process more transparent and formalized reduced the variability in time to promotion to full professor for all faculty and minimized differences between men and women. Recognition of faculty achievement through awards still shows gender bias. Women proportionally receive less awards, especially in recognition of research activities. This study illustrates that clear guidelines reduce gender bias in decisions and improve gender equity in the academia.