The aim of this dissertation is to analyze and discuss the individual experience of cultural legacy and inheritance, intended as the transmission of an immaterial product, from the perspective of continental philosophy, and especially through the lens of phenomenology. In particular, I discuss why the conventional way of approaching the matter in terms of tradition is unsatisfying when faced with the deeply personal nature of the Inheritance/Legacy phenomenon. I analyze the concept of `content' as the intellectual object to be transmitted and received in the process, and define it in terms of fragmentability and inclusiveness: what is the minimal notion that we can still inherit? What is the largest conglomerate of ideas that we can approach as one content? I introduce the fundamental notion of cultural density, as an alternative to culture in the discussion of the individual approach to contents. In particular, I define cultural density as the sum of all possible contents potentially available to an individual at any given time. Then, I move to the analysis of the moment of attention, as the locus of actualization of the contents, which are available in one's cultural density and, through attention, move into the interpretative space of inheritance. I also distinguish between attention and attentiveness. The core of my dissertation focuses in turn on Inheritance (the process of receiving a content from a previous author and making it ours) and Legacy (the creation of cultural contents in the perspective of a future receiver). I analyze their temporal relation and their complex interaction with our perception of time. I show how they are interconnected and how they both rely on narration (and specifically on self narration as a form of re-presentation) to be brought into actuality. Finally, I deal with their co-dependence and show how the reliance of Inheritance and Legacy on each other (with each needing the other to come first) gives rise to an apparent paradox. I suggest the notion of a saturated phenomenon (elaborated by Marion) to solve it, with an invitation to conceive the inconceivable (following Derrida and Levinas).

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・論文博士 / 博士(工学) / 乙第12923号 / 論工博第4116号 / 新制||工||1625(附属図書館) / 32133 / (主査)教授 木村 俊作, 教授 跡見 晴幸, 教授 岩田 博夫 / 学位規則第4条第2項該当 / Doctor of Philosophy (Engineering) / Kyoto University / DFAM

The El Niño phenomenon is caused by the change in atmospheric pressures, which produce the accumulation of hot surface waters on the eastern flank of the Pacific Ocean; causing intense rainfall that runs over the surface affecting the urban drainage of the city due to the lack of a permeable pavement; porous concrete allows infiltration of surface water runoff through its pores. The present investigation evaluates porous concrete in the range of w/c relationships of 0.30 and 0.32; the results indicate that the compressive strength, flexural strength and permeability coefficient increase; and that the surface runoff, cost, water footprint and carbon footprint are lower than conventional concrete.

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BACKGROUND: Piezoelectric surgery (PIEZO) uses ultrasonic vibration to cut hard tissue without damaging adjacent soft tissues. Our previous studies indicated that PIEZO enhanced bone turnover compared to a conventional rotary bur (BUR) in rat tibia wounds by inducing the regional acceleratory phenomenon (RAP). PIEZO induced osteocyte apoptosis without damaging blood vessels during Day 1, 3 and 7 of rat tibia healing. We hypothesized that PIEZO increased bone turnover by activation of osteocyte apoptosis with a controlled inflammatory response. This study evaluated early morphological changes in tibial defects caused by either PIEZO or BUR. MATERIALS & METHODS: We created surgical defects in tibia by either PIEZO or BUR in 9–10-week-old Sprague-Dawley rat tibias (n=4). We evaluated tissue responses by using H&E, Masson’s Trichrome and TRAP stains on Day 1, 3 & 7 after surgery. The surgical defect beneath the soft tissue was located using Computed Tomography (CT). RESULTS: On postoperative Day 1, there was no significant blood vessel change or cellular extravasation in the PIEZO group. In contrast the BUR group had extravasation of leukocytes and increased blood vessels' size. On Day3, there was no significant inflammation or morphological changes to blood vessels in the PIEZO group. Empty lacunae adjacent to the defect area suggested osteocyte apoptosis. In the BUR group, blood vessels returned to an average size and the leukocyte population was reduced and bone adjacent to the lesion was unaffected, and intact osteocytes were in the lacunae. On Day 7 there was increased in osteoclastic activity in Piezo compared the BUR group. CONCLUSION: These results suggested that PIEZO induced osteocyte apoptosis, increased bone turnover with a controlled inflammatory response and protected the bone blood vessel network.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the pop culture phenomenon of Twilight. Using a qualitative method of grounded theory, meanings and constructs were developed from the data. Data was gathered at three events centered around the release of the Twilight the film adaptation, and the release of the fourth and final book in the Twilight saga. A survey was administered to willing participants. After the surveys were gathered they were read and then coded. After the coding process a follow up interview was conducted with ten nominated and willing Twilight fans. The results had theoretical roots in uses and gratifications theory as well as parasocial theory.

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are events that occur during a person’s childhood that can affect their physical, mental, and social health later in life. Abuse, neglect or household disfunction are common events labeled as ACEs to study the effects of childhood trauma. ACEs have been linked to several negative physical and mental health outcomes, such as substance abuse, heart and lung diseases, anxiety and depression. Furthermore, several studies have shown that emotion dysregulation and attachment anxiety mediate the relationships between ACEs and negative health outcomes. Emotion dysregulation and attachment anxiety can also be linked to a commonly studied social aliment, imposter phenomenon. Individuals experiencing imposter phenomenon may feel as though they are undeserving of their personal accomplishments or have achieved them by luck or chance. Emotion dysregulation can lead to a lack of control, or perceived control, over one’s emotions. This lack of control could theoretically lead to feelings of inadequacy and fakeness experienced by those suffering from imposter phenomenon. Likewise, attachment anxiety can lead to fear of abandonment in relationships caused by the similar feelings of inadequacy. The aim of the present research was to therefore determine whether ACEs may predict greater feelings of the imposter phenomenon through emotion dysregulation and attachment anxiety. A total of 464 participants completed measures of ACEs, emotion dysregulation, attachment anxiety, and the imposter phenomenon online in REDCap. A bootstrap (5000 repetitions) mediation analysis conducted in JASP indicated that although ACEs do not directly predict the imposter phenomenon, greater ACEs indirectly predicted greater feelings of being an imposter through both emotion dysregulation and attachment anxiety. That is, the more ACEs one experiences theoretically leads to greater emotion dysregulation and higher attachment anxiety, both of which predict greater feelings of being an imposter. These results suggest that ACEs may disrupt the development of healthy coping mechanisms and regulation strategies that could feed into an inability to recognize one’s abilities and successes. Furthermore, experiencing negative mental and physical outcomes due to ACEs could produce a negative self-worth, leading to feelings of being an imposter. Likewise, anxiety in other aspects of life, such as relationships, could lead to these same feelings. Although the present research suggests that ACEs indirectly predict the imposter phenomenon, future research may show numerous factors impacting the imposter phenomenon with multiple interacting variables. Future research should aim to examine these factors prospectively and in different populations other than the one studied here. As with any self-report research, there could be discrepancies in data reported due to recall and impression management, especially when participants are asked about sensitive subjects, such as ACEs and intimate relationships. Despite these limitations, these results help provide a greater understanding of the effect ACEs and childhood trauma can have on social well-being and can also lead to a better understanding of development of and treatments for the imposter phenomenon.

The focus of this research is on the development of vibration response-based damage detection in civil engineering structures. Modal parameter-based and model identification-based approaches have been considered. In the modal parameter-based approach, the flexibility and curvature flexibility matrices of the structure are used to identify the damage. It is shown that changes in these matrices can be related to changes in stiffness values of individual structural members. Using this relationship, a method is proposed to solve for the change in stiffness values. The application of this approach is demonstrated on the benchmark problem developed by the joint International Association of Structural Control and American Society of Civil Engineers Structural Health Monitoring task group. The proposed approach is found to be effective in identifying various damage scenarios of this benchmark problem. The effect of missing modes on the damage identification scheme is also studied. The second method for damage identification aims at identifying sudden changes in stiffness for real time applications. It is shown that the high-frequency content of the response acceleration can be used to identify the instant at which a structure suffers a sudden reduction in its stiffness value. Using the Gibb's phenomenon, it is shown why a high-pass filter can be used for identifying such damages. The application of high-pass filters is then shown in identifying sudden stiffness changes in a linear multi-degree-of-freedom system and a bilinear single degree of freedom system. The impact of measurement noise on the identification approach is also studied. The noise characteristics under which damage identification can or cannot be made are clearly identified. The issue of quantification of the stiffness reduction by this approach is also examined. It is noted that even if the time at which the reduction in stiffness happens can be identified, the quantification of damage requires the knowledge of system displacement values. In principle, such displacements can be calculated by numerical integration of the acceleration response, but the numerical integrations are known to suffer from the low frequency drift error problems. To avoid the errors introduced due to numerical integration of the acceleration response, an approach utilizing the unscented Kalman filter is developed to track the sudden changes in stiffness values. This approach is referred to as the adaptive unscented Kalman filter (AUKF) approach. The successful application of the proposed AUKF approach is shown on two multi-degree of freedom systems that experience sudden loss of stiffness values while subjected to earthquake induced base excitation. / Ph. D.

This dissertation contributes to a methodology and a better understanding that can be used to study the effects of strategies during a pandemic, especially in multi-community networks. The dissertation is structured as the following: In the first chapter, we introduce the concept of networks and its properties, and node and link percolation, which is an important process embedded in networks. Then we discuss different epidemic models, among which the SIR model is representative of many infectious diseases, and can also be mapped into a link percolation problem. We bring up two quantities that are most important in evaluating the effectiveness of epidemic strategies, one is the total fraction of individuals ever been infected by the final steady state of the SIR model, the other is the peak fraction of infected throughout the process, the second of which has seldom been studied before. There have been many researches on epidemic models within isolated networks, but recently people start getting more interested in network of networks, due to its better representation of real world systems. So we study those two quantities and their dependence on the fraction of bridge nodes in multi-community networks, in the second and third chapters: In the second chapter, we look at the final steady state of the SIR (Susceptible-Infected-Recovered) model, which can be mapped as one cluster in a link percolation problem. Using the scaling relations for the cluster size distributions around the critical point within isolated networks, we find multiple regimes in a network with two communities so that the total fraction of individuals ever been infected asymptotically follows different power laws with the fraction of bridge nodes within each regime. We also find crossovers between neighbor regimes so that the power law exponent changes from one regime to the other. It is interesting to note that the power-law relations get steeper in regimes with smaller transmissibilities, so those epidemic strategies that reduce connections between communities are more effective in those regimes. In the third chapter, we look at the peak fraction of infected of the SIR model, which also shows power law relations with the fraction of bridge nodes in different regimes, as well as crossovers between regimes. We also find that the power-law relation for the peak fraction of infected with the fraction of bridge nodes is steeper than the one for the total fraction of individuals ever been infected in the same regime, which indicates that the peak fraction of infected is more sensitive to strategies that reduce connections between communities. This explains why strategies to flatten the curve are usually taken when there are limited medical resources.

This thesis describes an experimental study of the air flow in ventilating ducts in the stators of electric motors and/or generators of conventional design. The objective was to facilitate prediction of local heat transfer coefficients in ventilating ducts. Various flow phenomena were observed and compared with theoretical predictions. While the theory usually used for similar cases was found o be inapplicable, a related theory was found that checked well with experimental results. A stall phenomenon was observed under certain identified conditions. Useful relationships for predicting the flow details were obtained. The relevance of the work is discussed and future work is proposed. / Thesis / Master of Engineering (MEngr)