Thesis (M.F.A.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-01

In January 1975, Chevalier College, Bowral, and Elm Court, Moss Vale, schools for boys and girls respectively situated six kilometres apart, began discussions about extending their present combination in the senior school to full co-education in a fully combined high school. Chevalier would become the senior partner and take over administration of the combined school. In 1975, support was sought from religious communities, teaching staffs and parents involved, and detailed planning began in several committees. The next year brought conflict. For reasons so frequently associated with resistance to change, such as loss of power and identity, intensified by thoughtlessness from Chevalier, the Elm Court community began to resist and work against the amalgamation. The diocesan education authorities, appealed to by the local sisters, suggested an alternative proposal to replace the amalgamation. However, after further consideration by the superiors of the sisters at Elm Court, and helped by more careful consideration from Chevalier, the project finally went ahead. The major decisions concerned with the amalgamation were made by the superiors of the two religious orders concerned, and then by the school headmaster, assisted by his councils. There was very little real involvement of the local community of parents, or of the students. With the crisis successfully weathered, prospects seem bright for 1977, especially if the lessons learnt during the conflict are remembered.

<p>The purpose of this report is to present the findings from the thesis work performed at Qurius Sweden (former Ibitec). The goal was to evaluate how usable Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007) was in general and how usable two portal solutions created for MOSS 2007 were in particular. The goal also consisted ofevaluating how SharePoint could be improved in terms of usability and accessibility. The last part of the thesis work was to create a dynamic help tool, from where application specific help could be created.The usability was evaluated with a variant of usability engineering. Not all of the original method could be used because the products analyzed were already finished. The results from the analysis show that MOSS 2007 is quite usable, especially when it comes to document handling. It is also possible to create web pages and sites with ease. MOSS 2007 lacks in usability when it comes to presenting information to the user regarding what is going on in the system and. The system can also be quite complex and much to grasp for an end user. Solutions created in MOSS 2007 follows closely the usability of MOSS 2007 but they can be made very usable if only certain aspects are considered. Example of improvements could be the placement of the help system, clearer error messages and an overlook of managing user rights.The dynamic help tool was created in the programming language C# and based on the .NET platform. The implementation is a so-called Web Part that can easily be inserted on a page in MOSS 2007. The help tool uses the built in help system in MOSS 2007 for editing present help files and for adding new files to it. The help tool has a very minimalistic design and the focus was on the tasks it should be performing rather than a nice-looking interface. To ensure usability for the help tool, future work should be done, testing the product with real users and apply other usability methods to improve the help tool. As of now, no usability methods have been used while developing the help tool, nor have any tests with real users been performed. This is to be considered as future work.As a conclusion, both MOSS 2007 and the solutions created for it can be said to have a certain degree of usability shown from the evaluations. Improvements can be done, and should be, in order to increase the users’ experience. With the help tool, it is now possible to create solution specific help for a project intended for MOSS 2007.</p>

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This thesis examined the efficacy of residual forest structure for the preservation and recovery of bryophytes five to six years after partial canopy harvest in boreal mixed-wood forests of northwestern Alberta, Canada. Bryophytes were sampled in two forest types that differed in pre-harvest abundance of broadleaf (primarily Populus tremuloides Michx. and P. balsamifera L.) and coniferous (primarily Picea glauca (Moench) Voss) canopy trees. In Chapter 2, epiphytic bryophytes growing on aspen (P. tremuloides) were characterized by species viability and nearest-neighbour relationships. Epiphyte assemblage structure showed increasing impact with declining retention owing to degradation of growing conditions for species on trees. Chapter 3 provided an analysis of species richness and abundance patterns in relation to residual canopy structure. Bryophytes generally benefitted from higher canopy retention; however, epixylic and epiphytic species were more sensitive to partial harvesting than species on other substrates, and liverworts were more sensitive than mosses. Liverworts exhibited higher among-site differences in richness as retention declined, which partly resulted from increasing numbers of local species extinctions. In an analysis of species-environment relations in partially-harvested forests in Chapter 4, forest moisture was reduced with any degree of harvesting in both forest types. Lower canopy retention and forest moisture levels were associated with reduced abundances of species with particular biological traits, such as limited reproduction and dispersal capacities. Their re-establishment after harvesting may be impeded because of biological and environmental limitations. Coniferous-dominated forests supported higher abundances of liverworts and species with greater moisture requirements than did mixed-wood broadleaf-coniferous forests, and are potentially important refuges of bryophyte source populations. Chapter 5 examined the capacity for bryophyte species to germinate from diaspore banks in forest soils. Species germinated readily from mineral soil samples obtained from harvested sites, including several perennials characteristic of intact forests. Diaspore banks may serve as a persistent source for species colonization at post-disturbance sites, but only under appropriate growing conditions and not for species that were most sensitive to harvesting. Overall, both amount and composition of forest structure retained after partial harvesting are important management considerations for ensuring conservation of the wide variety of bryophyte species in mixed-wood landscapes. / Conservation Biology

AN ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION OF RENEE A LOPEZ SWALLS, for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in PLANT BIOLOGY, presented on June 27, 2016, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. TITLE: THE SPECIAL WALLS AROUND GAMETES IN CERATOPTERIS RICHARDII AND AULACOMNIUM PALUSTRE: USING IMMUNOCYTOCHEMISTRY TO EXPOSE STRUCTURE, FUNCTION, AND DEVELOPMENT MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Karen S. Renzaglia Gametes are arguably the most important cells formed during the sexual life cycle of plants. The ancestral condition of gametes in land plants is the production of small motile sperm cells and larger non-motile eggs. Unique walls or cell matrices are formed during the development of these highly specialized cells, and are integral to their proper development and maturation. Yet, the polysaccharide composition, structural function, and metabolic processes of these special gamete cell walls remain unexplored beyond examination in the light microscope. Utilizing histochemical techniques coupled with immunocytochemical localizations with monoclonal antibodies (MAbs), I give a detailed survey of AGP and cell wall polymer distribution during male and female gametogenesis in the model fern, Ceratopteris richardi, and for comparison with both Ceratopteris and seed plants, I examined the same cell wall polymers during spermatogenesis in Aulacomnium palustre, a moss species. AGPs are abundant in the extraprotoplasmic matrix that surrounds differentiating sperm and egg cells in the fern, Ceratopteris richardii. During spermatogenesis, AGPs are speculated to regulate growth of flagella and cell morphogenesis through cell signaling via Ca+2 oscillations. Immunogold localizations revealed that AGPs are differentially expressed in the egg envelope in C. richardii. These glycoproteins are extremely abundant prior to fertilization but decrease substantially after fusion of the male gamete with the egg cytoplasm. Contrary to the AGP-filled matrix surrounding developing spermatids, developing eggs are bathed in (1,5)-α-L-arabinan pectins and not AGPs. Lastly, I examined the unique cell walls that are integral to sperm cell differentiation and release in both Ceratopteris and Aulacomnium. The preponderance of callose and hemicelluloses in the walls of the male gametes of Ceratopteris and Aulacomnium, respectively, and the importance of these polysaccharides in development are discussed. Taken together, the studies that comprise this dissertation advance significantly our understanding of cell wall dynamics during gametogenesis in early land plants.

In this thesis I describe state directed transformation through urban regeneration policy in the context of Moss Side, Manchester in the North West of England. The thesis explores connections between the state project of urban regeneration and the lives of residents’ who were targeted by strategies. The thesis therefore moves from economic and political contexts that informed the policies of urban regeneration to how they were implemented and by whom, and then into the personal lives of residents in order to demonstrate connections between these. The latter half of the thesis focuses particularly on residents who were associated with the gang “GCG” who were often the targets of regeneration strategies. The thesis deals with a variety of themes: global cities, governance, constructing race, recognition politics, localities, simulations and violence. These are grounded in detailed ethnography describing Moss Side through residents lives which transformed as a result of regeneration policy. The thesis argues that urban regeneration strategies do not (as is often argued by regeneration practitioners) relieve the difficulties existing residents experience and yet often have far reaching consequences. I demonstrate this through a variety of examples: new governing structures, consultation processes, anti-social behaviour orders (ASBOs), gang members strategies opposing displacement, pirate radio disc jockeys searching for legitimacy, and the threat of sexual violence.

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In plants, saturated and unsaturated N-Acylethanolamines (NAEs) with acyl chains 12C to 18C are reported for their differential levels in various tissues and species. While NAEs were shown to play a vital role in mammalian neurological and physiological functions, its metabolism and functional implications in plants however, remains incomplete. Recently, anandamide (NAE 20:4), an essential fatty acid neurotransmitter in mammalian system, was identified in moss Physcomitrella patens, in addition to other types of NAEs. Bryophytes display high tolerance to abiotic stress and thus presence of anandamide in moss, but not in higher plants, suggests that NAE 20:4 might have contributed to their survival in harsh environmental conditions. Therefore, we hypothesize the anandamide metabolic pathway might play a role in mediating stress responses in P. patens. To this extent, using previously identified NAE-metabolic genes in mouse and/or Arabidopsis as templates, we identified moss orthologs for enzymes that likely participate in anandamide metabolism. We identified members of metallo-hydrolase superfamily and a/Β-hydrolase4, and five putative fatty acid amide hydrolases, which may hydrolyze N-acylphosphatidylethanolamine and NAE, respectively. Electronic fluorescent pictograph analyses of these orthologs in moss revealed differential developmental stage-specific expression patterns in gametophyte and sporophyte stages. We are currently examining expression pattern for these putative NAE-metabolic pathway genes, along with anandamide levels, in different tissues and developmental stages of moss subjected to water stress in the presence of anandamide. These transcript and metabolite levels in moss subjected to stress are expected to offer better understanding of the role of anandamide in mediating stress responses and further allow us to identify candidate genes that might participate in NAE metabolism. Our studies are aimed at functional validation of candidate genes and generating moss transgenic lines with altered NAE metabolite profile. Our long-term goal is to conduct comprehensive analyses of NAE metabolite mutants to determine their role in growth and development, and mediating stress responses in plants.