Within my studio practice I have been examining the aesthetics of leisure spaces, the implications of good and bad taste, and what it means to live one’s best life. Considering the history of design motifs and the influence of color upon the human psyche, my thesis exhibition of abstract paintings contains references to patterns, design movements, and modes of artifice that have historically been seen as brazen and tacky. These include nods to the Memphis Design group, faux marble, terrazzo, stucco, and artificial sand. Each has held an important place in the history of designed spaces, and at one time or another they were deeply celebrated before being criticized. I am drawn to the parallels between the surface treatment of furniture and architectural spaces, and the surface of a canvas. My use of materials includes a mixture of high- and lowbrow to reinterpret media such as highly pigmented acrylic paint, natural and artificial sand, volcanic pumice, and hardware store products for DIY home improvement. I use a formal, modernist painting language to elevate the artificial and superficial to the hierarchy associated with the moral underpinnings of modernism. By being entirely serious about the unserious, this work aims to question the value we assign to play and why tastefulness rarely aligns with fun.

Black women remain at a higher risk for HIV infection than women of any other ethnic group. Of all new infections reported among U.S. women in 2010, 64% occurred in African Americans compared to 18% Whites and 15% Hispanic/Latina women (CDC 2013a; CDC 2014b). While the literature on HIV risk among African American women is extensive, it mostly focuses on low income, low education subgroups of women or those involved in high risk behaviors such as drug use. Very little has been done to understand the risk for HIV among college educated, middle class women who do not fit into traditional "risk categories." Based on extensive fieldwork in Atlanta, GA, this study illustrates how middle class African American women's attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, and behaviors related to HIV risk are influenced by their social and cultural norms. This research employed a womanist framework to examine the intersection of race, gender, and class and the way these factors interact to shape HIV risk in middle class African American women. Whereas some middle class African American women perceive their HIV risk as low based on social class, structural factors associated with experiences of being an African American woman in Atlanta, GA (e.g., gender imbalance, geographic location, sexual networks) weaken the protective influence of class and put them at risk for HIV. Thus, findings from this study will help inform prevention strategies to focus on African American women who fall outside of "traditional risk groups."

The site analysis and mapping methods in the design and planning professions follow a standardized quantitative and qualitative analyis of place that favors a design process which can limit creativity and render it difficult to do anything with the normative. This work is an exploration of the development of a design approach and method that uses voice mapping as a basis for design. The voice maps contain oral histories and personal accounts of landscape experiences. Voice mapping is employed not only as a method or for site analysis but also as a generator or ideas. Voice Map Trekking is explored through a trek in the Canadian Arctic and across the Canadian Prairies. Two specific landscapes were chosen as bases for testing concepts - one near St. Gertrude SK and the other near Morinville AB. / February 2008

Fa 150 anys que es van crear els estudis d'enginyeria industrial a Espanya amb l'objectiu de donar resposta a la creixent industrialització. Tanmateix, de totes les escoles inicialment creades sols l'Escola d'Enginyeria Industrial Barcelona va continuar la seva tasca sense interrupció des de 1851. A un període tant dilatat d'existència li correspon un ampli ventall d'esdeveniments. No obstant, aquesta tesi sols n'estudia un de concret emmarcat entre dues dates: la creació de la Càtedra Ferran Tallada el 1955 i els esdeveniments relacionats amb ella fins que al 1962 la primera promoció d'alumnes del Pla 1957 va iniciar les matèries pròpies de l'especialitat de Tècniques Energètiques.Així, doncs, en primer lloc hem dut a terme un estudi de la situació internacional a través d'una classificació de països implicats atenent al nombre de reactor de recerca i de potència que posseïen, cosa que ens ha permès situar Espanya dins d'un grup de països de desenvolupament similar pel que respecta a l'energia nuclear.A continuació, hem estudiat les peculiaritats del desenvolupament nuclear espanyol des de la constitució d'EPALE (Estudios y Patentes de Aleaciones Especiales) fins a la creació de la Junta d'Energia Nuclear. I després, hem analitzat les repercussions del programa Àtoms per la Pau, fins a la construcció dels primers reactors experimentals.El nucli central de la tesi el constitueix l'anàlisi de les activitats docents de la Càtedra Ferran Tallada durant els seus primers anys i el paper rellevant que va tenir en la formació dels enginyers que haurien de fer-se càrrec de les futures centrals nuclears de potència. La comparació dels estudis impartits amb els dels altres països, desenvolupada en un altre capítol, permet confirmar que, tant per la durada com pels continguts, els ensenyaments de la càtedra barcelonina estaven en la mateixa línia que altres destacades escoles d'enginyeria europees.Tot i gaudir de condicions nacionals i internacionals favorables, el ràpid i reeixit establiment i posterior desenvolupament de la Càtedra Ferran Tallada no pot explicar-se sense tenir en compte la decidida implicació dels industrials agrupats a la Cambra Oficial d'Indústria.La tesi analitza la participació decidida de la Cambra en el recolzament dels ensenyaments tècnics, en general, i dels nuclears, en particular, a través de subvencions, beques i de la adquisició per a l'Escola d'un reactor nuclear anomenat Argos.La construcció i instal·lació del reactor Argos, que es estudiat en un altre capítol, va significar una important innovació tant en el camp polític com en el tecnològic ja que fou el primer reactor construït a Espanya. Per això creiem que, lluny dels criteris de rendibilitat econòmica, l'Argos fou dut a terme per la Junta d'Energia Nuclear per raons estrictament polítiques que cercaven la formació i ensinistrament dels tècnics amb la finalitat que la seva construcció servís de prova per la realització posterior d'un reactor prototip espanyol que fos model per a les futures centrals nuclears.Finalment, amb la constitució de l'especialitat de Tècniques Energètiques -especialitat adreçada a la formació en enginyeria nuclear- la Càtedra Ferran Tallada, gràcies també a la col·laboració de la Cambra, va reorientar la seva activitat cap a les aplicacions dels isòtops radioactius, aspecte que és estudiat en un altre capítol. Es pot concloure doncs que la professionalització de l'enginyeria nuclear a l'Escola d'Enginyeria Industrials de Barcelona va ser possible gràcies a la voluntat decidida de la societat civil i més concretament dels industrials que des de la Cambra Oficial d'Indústria apostaren fort per la formació dels tècniques en aquesta disciplina com a pas previ al desenvolupament de l'energia nuclear amb la construcció de centrals productores d'energia elèctrica.

En los albores del siglo XV se dio inicio en el continente europeo a una transformación tecnológica que habría de afectar las más diversas disciplinas humanas: en 1494 una nueva y poderosa arma batió rápidamente -de manos de las tropas francesas- las hasta ahora muy sólidas murallas italianas: se trataba del cañón accionado con pólvora. Con él, un novedoso conjunto de conocimientos especializados comenzó a estructurarse; la investigación y la experiencia obtenida en las acciones bélicas permitió conocer los efectos de las nuevas armas, la valoración de los ángulos de tiro, el efecto de las minas, e incluso procedimientos clínicos para la atención de los heridos en el campo de batalla ...; pero fue sin duda en el arte de construcción de fortificaciones en donde se produjo un cambio realmente significativo que tiró por los suelos -junto a los muchos recintos amurallados de las ciudades medievales-, todo un conjunto de saberes que hasta ahora se había servido del cuerpo doctrinal de dos remotos autores romanos: Vitruvio y Vegecio.No fueron pocos los hombres del siglo XVI que dieron inicio al esfuerzo por lograr un mejor entendimiento de la aplicación de los materiales en la construcción de cortinas y baluartes, del asiento y espesor de cimentaciones y muros, de la profundidad y ancho de los fosos, de la inclinación de taludes, de la resistencia de las bóvedas y forjados, del suministro y evacuación de las aguas, e incluso de la aparentemente mágica relación que se establecía entre el trazado hecho sobre polígonos regulares y el perímetro perfecto capaz de resistir el peor de los asedios ... Portadores de ese extenso conjunto de conocimientos, se llevaron a las imprentas europeas un número indeterminado de libros dedicados al tema de la arquitectura y la ingeniería militar: los llamados tratados de arquitectura militar o tratados de fortificación, los mismos en donde todavía es posible apreciar el encomiable esfuerzo de sus autores por construir y reglar una técnica: la del ingeniero militar, la del arquitecto.Tal proceso no fue fácil: él demandó una transformación en los métodos de elaboración de ideas y conceptos, tal y como lo expresan los muchos autores en las formas de sus discursos, en el uso de las palabras, en el orden en que se exponen las ideas, en la manera de relacionarse con las ciencias ... Y es que tuvieron que apropiarse de saberes ajenos inscritos dentro del marco común de las acciones propias del arte de construir y guiarse por la explícita necesidad de definir unos límites propios de su actividad con el fin de conformar un corpus doctrinal autónomo.Esta Tesis da cuenta de ese proceso a través de un estudio detallado de los tratados de fortificación impresos en Europa (siglos XVI - XVIII) y de sus contenidos de construcción. / The dawn of the 15th century, saw the beginning of a technological transformation in the European continent; one which would affect the most diverse human disciplines: in 1494, a new and powerful weapon, at the hands of French troops, quickly defeated the, till then, very solid Italian defense walls - it was the gunpowder-activated canon. With it, a novel set of specialized knowledge began its structuring; investigation and experience gathered in war actions allowed for knowledge in the effects of the new weapons, the assessment of the launching angles, the effect of land mines, and even clinical procedures to aid the wounded on the battle field .; but it was without a doubt in the art of fortress construction where a truly significant change came about, toppling - along with many walled installations in medieval cities - a whole set of previous knowledge, which till hence had availed itself of the doctrinal corpus of two remote Roman authors: Vitruvious and Vegecious. Many men since then have given start to the effort of reaching a better understanding of the application of materials in the construction of rampart curtains and bastions, the settlement and thickness of foundations and walls, the depth and width of moats, the inclination of taluses, the resistance of vaults and mortared cements, the supply and evacuation of water, and even to the apparently magical relationship established between the tracing from regular polygons and the perfect perimeter capable of withstanding the worst of attacks .Bearers of that vast set of knowledge, an indeterminate number of books dedicated to the issue of military architecture and engineering were brought to European printers between the painfully long years between 1500 and 1800: the so-called treatises on military architecture or fortification treatises, the very same that can today still be appreciated in their authors' praiseworthy effort to build and regulate a technique: that of a military engineer, that of an architect.Such a process was not easy: it called for a transformation in the methods of elaborating ideas and concepts, just as it is expressed by many authors in many ways through their discourse, in the use of words, in the order ideas are presented, in the manner of relating to science. And it is that they had to appropriate themselves of the knowledge of others inscribed within the common scope of the very actions in the art of building and guiding themselves by the explicit necessity of defining the limits appertaining to their activity, in order to conform an autonomous doctrinal corpus. This thesis reviews that process through detailed study of the fortification treatises and their construction contents printed in Europe from the 16th to the 18th centuries.

Abstract: This thesis aims to explore how utopian desires re/shape the posthuman, cyberspace and histories by means of information technologies in William Gibson¡¦s Idoru and All Tomorrow¡¦s Parties, which construct a fragmented but subversive power by representing the world in a utopian text that allows the free play of ideology. Gibson uses utopian imagination to cobble together a near future that reflects his concern with information technologies and media over contemporary society. Utopian imaginations on the one hand open up possibilities and transform fixed ideas; on the other, utopian imaginations are easily turned into utopian desires that are subject to manipulation if utopian designers want to sell. I intend to discover how desires to realize a utopia (body, space, and history), which is the ultimate goal of utopian program, are being manipulated by utopian designers. I will mainly adapt and blend Katherine Hayles¡¦s notion of the posthuman perspectives to challenge human possibilities, Donna Haraway¡¦s notion of the cyborg as a blasphemy to Western traditions, Louis Marin¡¦s Disneyland analysis as an apparatus to examine utopic expressions in William Gibson¡¦s textual constructions of utopias, and Walter Benjamin¡¦s notions of material historiography and history¡¦s messianic power in tracing individual memories under a capitalist contextualized History. In Chapter One, I will argue that Idoru as well as Idoru metamorphosize from a dialectical structure into an informational pattern-random structure, from a commodity into a posthuman subjectivity. I will adopt Katherine Hayles¡¦s concept of information narratives in explaining the re/shaping of Rei¡¦s body and her concept of the posthuman to explicate the struggle between the posthuman and the transhuman. In Chapter Two I will argue that cyberspace serves as a utopia that brings forth the desire to transcend the flesh. This utopian desire is a transgressive discourse that breaks up the totality of a closed system. Moreover, cyberspace exposes the feedback looping of the discourses of capitalism and anti-capitalism. Respectively, by the representation of virtual Venice and the Walled City, these two utopias write proposals that project discourses of pleasure and criticism for achieving their programs. I will adopt Donna Haraway¡¦s cyborg ontology in explaining cyberspace as a transgressive discourse and Louis Marin¡¦s Disneyland analysis as an apparatus of utopic expressions and the limits of utopia. Next, in Chapter Three, I shall expose how Harwood the capitalist manipulates the world to fit into his utopian proposal: modernization of the city as a manifestation of a utopia by means of cyberspace as a network that connects people globally. To contravene Harwood, Idoru, Laney and the Walled City denizens collaborate to checkmate Harwood¡¦s king. I will elaborate on the interactions between the universal history and the individual histories based on Walter Benjamin¡¦s concept of history.

Ο κύριος σκοπός της παρούσας εργασίας είναι να συγκεντρωθούν συγκεκριμένες θεωρήσεις που χρησιμοποιούν τον φορμαλισμό των συνεπών ιστοριών σε βασικά προβλήματα της κβαντικής θεωρίας και κβαντικής κοσμολογίας. Ο φορμαλισμός αυτός είναι πολλά υποσχόμενος για τον τομέα της κανονικής κβαντικής βαρύτητας. Ο λόγος που θα κάνουμε αυτή την ανασκόπηση είναι για να δώσουμε μία ενοποιημένη εικόνα στα ζητήματα αυτά και να μπορέσουμε να τα συγκρίνουμε. Συγκεκριμένα, το πρώτο μέρος αφορά δύο διαφορετικές προσεγγίσεις για το πρόβλημα του χρόνου άφιξης στην κβαντομηχανική, εκ των οποίων και οι δύο χρησιμοποιούν φορμαλισμό ιστοριών. Η πρώτη έγινε από τους Halliwell και Yearsly (2009) και η δεύτερη από τους Anastopoulo και Saviddou (2012). Από την σύγκριση αυτών καταλήγουμε στο συμπέρασμα ότι και οι δύο δίνουν μία αδρομερή μορφή της εξίσωσης του Kijowski. Το δεύτερο μέρος αφορά την κβαντική κοσμολογία. Σε αυτό αρχικά παρουσιάζεται μία προσέγγιση με συνεπείς ιστορίες για την πυκνότητα πιθανότητας στην κβαντική κοσμολογία η οποία έγινε από τον Halliwell (2009). Στην συνέχεια παρουσιάζεται μία προσέγγιση με ιστορίες για μοντέλα μίνι-υπερχώρου από τους Anastopoulo and Savidou (2005). Σε αυτή κατασκευάζονται μοντέλα μίνι-υπερχώρου με όρους προβολικών τελεστών ιστοριών (HPO). Η σπουδαιότητα αυτού του φορμαλισμού έγκειται στο γεγονός ότι η γενική σχετικότητα σε αυτή την μορφή ικανοποιεί και τους χωροχρονικούς διαφορομορφισμούς και την άλγεβρα Dirac, με αποτέλεσμα να είναι εύκολα κβαντίσιμη. / The major purpose of this study is to consecrate specific approaches to some problems of quantum theory and quantum cosmology, in terms of decoherence histories formalism which is a very promising formalism for the canonical quantum gravity theories. The reason is to give a unified picture to these issues in order to be possible to compare them. Specifically, the first part contains two different approaches to the time of arrival in quantum mechanics, both of these use a histories formalism. The first is from Halliwell and Yearsly (2009) and the second from Anastopoulos and Saviddou (2012). By comparing them we deduce that both of them first gives a coarse-grain form of the Kijowski' s probability distribution. The second part concerns quantum cosmology. In this, we presented a decoherent histories approach to quantum cosmological probabilities, in which was used a complex potential, from Halliwell (2009). After that we present a histories approach to minisuperspace models by Anastopoulos and Savidou (2005). In this, minisuperspace models is written in terms of histories projector operator (HPO) formalism. The spectacular of this is that in that form general relativity satisfies both spacetime diffeomorfisms and Dirac algebra, which is very important because it is easier to be quantized.

This dissertation addresses the development of Nuevomexicano/a student identity at New Mexico Highlands University (NMHU) during three periods: (1) New Mexico's Territorial period and early statehood, (2) the 1940s, and (3) the late 1960s and early 1970s. Nuevomexicano/a student identity was shaped through a process of accommodating to and resisting institutional powers. Since 1898, Nuevomexicano/a students have been active members of the university community, despite periods when they constituted a small portion of the student body and the institution's frequent disregard for Nuevomexicano/a culture and language. As they participated in campus activities, Nuevomexicano/as reconstructed their individual and collective identities, appropriating terms such as Spanish or Chicano/a, as a rhetorical strategy to revise their relationships with the university. Extralocal institutions, including government institutions, national protest movements, and international organizations shaped public conversations about cultural identity. During the first two periods, students employed subtle strategies of resistance that included presenting speeches and reorganizing student government. Often labeled as accommodationist, these strategies represent viable rhetorical strategies that provided students access to dominant literacies, which were used to promote social change. In the 1970s, Chicano/a students utilized more aggressive practices, such as a weeklong sit-in, to radically alter the institutional culture at NMHU. In the forty years since the sit-in, NMHU has developed into a university that supports its Nuevomexicano/a students and incorporates elements of their culture into the university's social fabric.

No description available.

Using a combination of optical and near-infrared photometry, we have studied both the resolved and integrated stellar populations for a sample of Virgo cluster galaxies spanning the full range of galaxian parameters. The derived stellar population properties are compared against galaxy structural and environmental measures to gauge the importance of these factors in establishing galaxy star formation histories and chemical evolution. Although galaxy colours do not uniquely probe a galaxy's star formation history, meaningful results may be obtained if considered in a relative sense. We find that colour profiles reflect variations in both stellar age and metallicity within galaxies. We also uncover systematic variations in colour gradients, and thus age/metallicity gradients, along the Hubble sequence, such that age and metallicity gradients become increasingly negative toward later Hubble types. However, only weak correlations exist between galaxies' stellar populations and their structure and environment. The correlations we find suggest that the star formation histories of gas-rich galaxies are strongly influenced by gas removal within the cluster, while their chemical evolution is due to a combination of stellar mass-dependent enrichment and outflow retention. The assembly of gas-poor giant galaxies is consistent with a hierarchical scenario wherein gas-rich mergers dominate by number. Gas-poor dwarfs differ from the giants, however, appearing as the product of environmentally-driven evolution. Spiral galaxies bridge the dwarf-giant gap, whereby merging and gas-stripping signatures are imprinted in their stars. Early-type spirals seem to have fallen into the cluster sooner than the later types, thereby ceasing star formation in their disks at earlier epochs. The bulges of both types, however, appear to have grown via merging. The nature of this merging (minor versus major) remains unknown. Irregular galaxies exhibit signs of a recent gravitational encounter that has redistributed both their stars and gas, the latter of which caused recent star formation. / Thesis (Master, Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy) -- Queen's University, 2009-08-25 14:12:46.48