Edgar Allan Poe has long been considered one of the great writers in Gothic literature. His works, as he himself suggested in his essay “The Philosophy of Composition,” are intended to strike a unique balance between mainstream appeal and higher literary craft. In many ways, my goals as a composer are similar, not just in mitigating this often tenuous dynamic, but also in tapping into powerful emotional states. Poe is a master at creating moods, for instantly drawing the reader into his dynamic worlds. Many of his works spend a significant amount of time, sometimes paragraph upon paragraph as in the opening to The Fall of the House of Usher, simply detailing his specific vision of the story’s tenor. In this piece, I was interested in musically depicting the imagery, which Poe so eloquently writes. I have chosen three of Poe’s short stories: The Black Cat, The Pit and the Pendulum, and The Fall of the House of Usher. In each movement, I deliberately avoid any programmatic connection to the story, that is to say specific events in the music do not coincide with any actual depiction of an event within the intended story. Rather this piece examines and details the specific tone of each story. Midnight Drearies: Three Moods on Edgar Allan Poe was written for Dan Welcher and the University of Texas New Music Ensemble. / text

published_or_final_version / Dentistry / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

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Through the years, there has been a great deal of archaeological research focused on the earliest farming cultures of Europe (i.e. Early Neolithic). However, little effort has been expended to uncover the type and nature of daily activities performed within Early Neolithic dwellings, particularly in the Balkans. This thesis conducts a spatial analysis of the Early Neolithic pit house levels of the Foeni-Salaş site in southeast Romania, in the northern half of the Balkans, to determine the kinds and locations of activities that occurred in these pit houses. Characteristic Early Neolithic dwellings in the northern Balkans are pit houses. The data are analyzed using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology in an attempt to identify non-random patterns that will indicate how the pit house inhabitants used their space. Both visual and statistical (Nearest Neighbor) techniques are used to identify spatial patterns. Spreadsheet data are incorporated into the map database in order to compare and contrast the results from the two techniques of analysis. Map data provides precise artefact locations, while spreadsheet data yield more generalized quad centroid information. Unlike the mapped data, the spreadsheet data also included artefacts recovered in sieves. Utilizing both data types gave a more complexand fuller understanding of how space was used at Foeni-Salaş. The results show that different types of activity areas are present within each of the pit houses. Comparison of interior to exterior artifact distributions demonstrates that most activities take place within pit house. Some of the activities present include weaving, food preparation, butchering, hide processing, pottery making, ritual, and other activities related to the running of households. It was found that these activities are placed in specific locations relative to features within the pit house and the physical structure of the pit house itself. This research adds to the growing body of archaeological research that implements GIS to answer questions and solve problems related to the spatial dimension of human behaviour.

The purpose of this practicum is to develop a dynamic and flexible site plan and management strategy which allows Terwillegar Park, in Edmonton, Alberta, to evolve into a place rich in species biodiversity and of high ecological function; that challenges public perception of nature in the city while fostering environmental appreciation and stewardship; and which celebrates its unique identity within the North Saskatchewan River Valley. A review of the pertinent City of Edmonton municipal development plan, environmental goals/policy, parks planning and recreation planning documents are completed, as they apply to the long term planning and development of Terwillegar Park. The implied objectives derived from these documents will then be combined with a qualitative inventory and analysis, and ultimately reconciled through a site plan design and management strategy.

This Masters Thesis describes the continuation of the Snow Probe development. The focus of this project was to establish the rotational shear vane as a useful tool in avalanche safety work as well as develop a robust method for measuring the applied torque. A new and novel way of measuring the torque on a rotational shear vane has been developed to illustrate its effectiveness. The new system measures the power supplied to a cordless drill to get an indication of the applied torque. This was done because it was found that the earlier method of using a strain gauge/cantilever system repeatedly failed to work, largely due to complexity. The snow probe in its present embodiment has been shown to provide a good clear indication of the snow profile under easily repeated circumstances. Shear strength results are at this stage not sufficiently for reliable quantitative results. However the probe in its present form is able to give pictorial impressions of the snow pack that compare well to current hand hardness profiles derived from snow pit methods. Even in its current form the snow probe is able to collect useful snow profile data in a matter of minutes, much quicker than conventional snow pit methods. A loose relationship was found to exist between the approach angle of a shear vane blade and the clarity of the snow profile. These relationships are relatively inaccurate at present due to lack of rotational velocity data and therefore pproach angle data. It is believed that the addition of a rotation counter would greatly increase the accuracy of the probe results and enable a shear strength profile to be quantified. Further developments and testing are underway with a view to forming a company around the snow probe.

Bedload transport studies are essential in the understanding of river forms, functions and processes. These studies have been done using various methods over the past century. In recent years Radio Frequency Identification Technology (RFID) has become popular with researchers to track bedload particles. However, no standard operating procedures are used in the implementation of this technology. Methods used for tagging, seeding and tracking RFID tracers (RFID transponders inserted into a bedload particle) can introduce variability in their detection. In this study, RFID tracers were used to study four sites in Laurel Creek in Waterloo, Ontario. Two hundred RFID tracers were seeded in each of the four sites. Following three major storm events, the tracers were tracked with an antenna and their locations surveyed. The tracers were able to be detected to a precision of 1 m as a transponder used can be detected at a maximum of this distance. Practical tracking in the field highlighted the need for the understanding of how precisely the tag location can be identified. Laboratory experiments were designed and carried out to determine the effects of factors (tracer orientation, antenna orientation, tracer size, clustering of multiple tracers, burial depth, saturation and submergence of the soil matrix) that possibly confounded detection. Of these factors, tracer orientation, clustering and burial depths were determined to be the ones that affected detection distances the most. A transponder in a vertical orientation was found to have as much as 40% larger range of detection than a transponder in a horizontal orientation (i.e., they could be detected from further away). Additionally, “skip zones” were identified during laboratory and field experiments. These are zones of gaps in the electromagnetic field of the transponder that occur directly over the transponder. These zones were experimentally determined to extend to approximately 10 cm on each side of the transponder. Therefore, by identifying the skip zones, the tracers can be located to a precision of 10 cm; this is an order of magnitude smaller than the published detection limit of the transponder. The precision of detection can also be improved by the reduction of the effects of confounding factors. However, the improvement in the precision of detection is a tradeoff with the ease of detection. A tagging, seeding and tracking protocol is recommended to counter the effects of confounding factors.