No description available.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, 2002. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 144-148).

This dissertation is an autobiographical study that explores how my past experiences related to art and education inform my teaching, and how my teaching informs how I theorize about art. Through the research process, I investigated issues about art and education by "drawing on" personal experience. The study supports the notion that personal experience is the basis of knowledge and assumes that to understand teachers' knowledge it is beneficial to observe it from a teacher's perspective. It touches on issues of teacher knowledge, the role of personal history and attitudes, and identity. / The research involved observation of my teaching in a summer camp setting, layered with the autobiographical project of writing stories based on experiences related to art and education. The methods used to collect data consisted of established approaches to researching one's own practice, such as narrative writing, video documentation, and observation, as well as an arts-based approach to memory work that combined collage and narrative. The experiences that I addressed include my observation of two quilting guilds, my memories of making art as a child at summer camp and in elementary school, my graduate school experience in a Master of Fine Arts program, and my reflections on art that I see in galleries and museums. / Although the original goal of my study was simply to understand my teaching more fully, the process of research has done more than allow me to understand how my lived experiences inform my teaching. The study points out the complex interrelationship between the notion of "place" and my beliefs about art. Autobiographical research has been a process of challenging my beliefs and finding meaning through my own thinking; it has provided a way for me to develop a critical awareness of my practice, to question the taken-for-granted nature of my understanding of art and to imagine other possibilities for practice.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, 2002. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 144-148).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, 2002. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 144-148).

No description available.

QC 20100420

Studying the acceleration and propagation mechanisms of Galactic cosmic rays can provide information regarding astrophysical sources, the properties of our Galaxy, and possible exotic sources such as dark matter. To understand cosmic ray acceleration and propagation mechanisms, accurate measurements of different cosmic ray elements over a wide energy range are needed. The PAMELA experiment is a satellite-borne apparatus which allows different cosmic ray species to be identified over background. Measurements of the cosmic ray antiproton flux and the antiproton-to-proton flux ratio from 1.5 GeV to 180 GeV are presented in this thesis, employing the data collected between June 2006 and December 2008. Compared to previous experiments, PAMELA extends the energy range of antiproton measurements and provides significantly higher statistics. During about 800 days of data collection, PAMELA identified approximately 1300 antiprotons including 61 above 31.7 GeV. A dramatic improvement of statistics is evident since only 2 events above 30 GeV are reported by previous experiments. The derived antiproton flux and antiproton-to-proton flux ratio are consistent with previous measurements and generally considered to be produced as secondary products when cosmic ray protons and helium nuclei interact with the interstellar medium. To constrain cosmic ray acceleration and propagation models, the antiproton data measured by PAMELA were further used together with the proton spectrum reported by PAMELA, as well as the B/C data provided by other experiments. Statistical tools were interfaced with the cosmic ray propagation package GALPROP to perform the constraining analyses. Different diffusion models were studied. It was shown in this work that only current PAMELA data, i.e. the antiproton-to-proton ratio and the proton flux, are not able to place strong constraints on propagation parameters. Diffusion models with a linear diffusion coefficient and modified diffusion models with a low energy dependence of the diffusion coefficient were studied in the $\chi^{2}$ study. Uncertainties on the parameters and the goodness of fit of each model were given. Some models are further studied using the Bayesian inference. Posterior means and errors of the parameters base on our prior knowledge on them were obtained in the Bayesian framework. This method also allowed us to understand the correlation between parameters and compare models. Since the B/C ratio used in this analysis is from experiments other than PAMELA, future PAMELA secondary-to-primary ratios (B/C, $^{2}$H/$^{4}$He and $^{3}$He/$^{4}$He) can be used to avoid the data sets inconsistencies between different experiments and to minimize uncertainties on the solar modulation parameters. More robust and tighter constraints are expected. The statistical techniques have been demonstrated useful to constrain models and can be extended to other observations, e.g. electrons, positrons, gamma rays etc. Using these channels, exotic contributions from, for example, dark matter will be further investigated in future. / QC 20120523

Thesis (M.F.A.)--University of Wyoming, 2007. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Nov. 18, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 12).

The intention of this dissertation is to examine the writings of three South African women authors who are active in the post-apartheid era. Work by South African women writers, mainly English-speaking, has been emerging at a remarkable rate in the first 10 years of democracy. The three women authors chosen for examination here have been selected because of their different racial and social backgrounds. In different ways, they attempt to recuperate an alternative past by using a voice previously denied them through sexist and racial discrimination during apartheid South Africa. Post-apartheid writing has not received its due attention. In the main, the treatment of the works of post-apartheid authors has been slight and superficial. Unsurprisingly, the writers whose works are examined here reveal a cultural awareness of a society previously dominated by racial discrimination. However, their creative responses to the period of transition and the new social and political realities have been diverse, and this makes for revealing and enlightening analysis, criticism and comparison.