In today’s society, more of the population is finding itself with multiple points of reference to what they consider as home. Anyone who finds they have more than one place that they feel tied to for one reason or another, considers the impact of these places on their identity. The scale of experience with the places where we live, visit and grow up influences the scale of impact upon our identity. Even a vacation or a visit to a certain place influences us, and thus also changes the place because we interact with it. I am showing, through sculptural and creative media, the layering effect of locational identity and the journeys we make to physically and conceptually link those identities.

A direct historical approach is used in this thesis to document the lost wax casting technique as currently practiced by indigenous metallurgists in northeastern Thailand. The smiths observed at Ban Pba Ao, Ubon Ratchathani Province are the last practicing members of a bronze working tradition that has been in continuous operation at the village for two centuries. An account of the processes used to create bronze bells is provided. Of particular significance is the fact that the yard in which casting activities are performed did not receive clean up operations following the bells production. As a result, hearths, bowl furnaces, crucibles and fragments of clay moulds are left scattered about the yard. These materials accumulating in one location would eventually create a mound of cultural debris. The discarded materials from the lost wax casting process as practiced at Ban Pba Ao provide considerable insight into what might be found in the stratigraphy of Peninsular Southeast Asian prehistoric sites that were involved in the production of bronze objects. The study concludes that attention needs to be paid to the stratigraphic sequences from which bronze artifacts are extracted, rather than relying on the artifacts to determine the type of process used in their manufacture.

The purpose of this research was to explore nurses' perceptions of the effectiveness of nursing documentation of patient status during a clinical event when using electronic documentation with or without embedded standardized languages. The theoretical framework for this study was based on principles of information theory. This study was significant in two very important ways; first, in contrast to prior studies, the perceptions of nurses were focused on the documentation of a clinical event. Second, this study explored the nurses' opinions about the strengths and limitations of using structured languages (specifically, the North American Nursing Diagnosis Association (NANDA), the Nursing Intervention Classification (NIC), and the Nursing Outcomes Classification (NOC)) for telling the patient's story during a clinical event, as well as collecting nurses' suggestions for improving electronic documentation. Semi-structured interviews of 37 nurses were conducted in two acute care hospitals. Both hospitals used electronic documentation, but only one used embedded standardized nursing languages. Half the interviewees were asked questions from the perspective of the nurse documenting a clinical event; half were asked questions from the perspective of a nurse reviewing another nurse's documentation of a clinical event. Recorded interviews were transcribed, and the transcripts analyzed using qualitative content analysis. A panel of judges was used to establish reliability of the coding scheme. The results showed that nurses perceived aspects of three categories (usability, legibility, and communication) as strengths of the documentation system. Nurses perceived aspects of three categories (usability, communication, and workarounds) as limitations of the documentation system. Potential solutions to improve the documentation system were defined related to three categories (usability, communication, and collaboration). Usability was perceived by the nurses as a strength of the electronic documentation with embedded nursing languages. Usability of the electronic documentation system with nursing languages was also perceived as a limitation. Improving language usability was identified as a potential solution to improve the electronic documentation system with embedded nursing languages.

The thesis explores the complex relationship between modern audio technologies and the art of popular music through close scrutiny specific artefacts, a largely neglected area of musicological research. The detailed analyses presented here reveal the ways in which particular analogue and digital audio technologies are used, and how these have tended to shape and inform the musical and sonic characteristics of popular music recordings and related artefacts.

No description available.

During the execution of a project constructed under the traditional contractual system, separate sets of site records are typically kept by each team of the two main parties on the construction site: the contractor, and the supervisor who looks after the client's interests. While the contractor's prime concern is to construct the project in accordance with the contract documents, one of the site supervisor's main functions is to keep a good record of what actually takes place during the construction process. Identifying the contractor's ability to complete the project on time, confirming that works are carried out correctly, and dealing with contractor's claims, are some instances where site records are likely to be used. It is therefore very important that the record-keeping system adopted by the supervising team provides detailed information in a readily-accessible format to ensure that facts can be established at any time during the construction period, or years later, when disputes may develop. This research programme studied the nature of existing site records kept by construction supervisors, to identify the types of records kept, the use made of them, and the problems and difficulties encountered in maintaining such records. It concentrated mainly on records of progress of construction works. The methodology adopted for undertaking this research, apart from reviewing the relevant literature, involved carrying out preliminary studies and conducting a national survey. The preliminary investigation comprised two studies as follows:• Studying site records kept on a project under construction. • Studying a set of site records kept on a completed project. The national survey, using mailed questionnaires, aimed at determining attitudes held and procedures currently adopted in the site record-keeping process in order that the present state of the art might be determined. The data gathered from the survey, in addition to resolving the research aims and objectives, has been used to investigate a number of assertions made regarding particular areas of construction supervisors' site records. The research findings revealed that the typical set of site records kept by construction supervisors is deficient in a number of respects. Various problems and difficulties relating to the procedures currently adopted by site staff have been identified which will typically affect the quality of these records and hence limit their value. If records are to be more useful, they must be more accessible and this suggests an increasing use of computers. With information held electronically in an organised system, the problems of accessibility should be reduced considerably. In addition to the general conclusions, a number of recommendations to improve site records have been made, including elements of quality procedures for record-keeping, and the potential use of an electronic diary software as a valuable tool for computerising one of the most important sources of site records.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1991. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 128-132) / Microfiche. / xiii, 132 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

In this thesis I examine the ways in which the modern state addresses sex. I want to ascertain by what considerations the state is informed in its relationship to sex. What is behind the state???s regulation of sexual practices? What is its interest in regard to sex? To answer these questions I examine fundamental artefacts of the modern state, especially the law (but also the bureaucracy), as directed by the 1993 English court case of Brown. Brown involves the search for the sexual subject; The Lords in Brown were at a loss for how to conceptualise the subject before them. Their search is my own: who is the sexual subject? What is his relationship to the state? To answer these questions, Brown directs me for authority to two widely separated moments of supposed classic ???discontinuity???: the 1957 Wolfenden Report, and the late-Victorian Queen???s Bench. These two moments in government - the 1960s and the 1880s - are usually depicted as ideologically different, indicating discontinuity, difference, change and perhaps even revolution between the relative approaches of the state to sex. And yet, in Brown, both are upheld as appropriate contemporary authorities on sex, the individual and the state. Here I take my cue from the Lords and interrogate the artefacts of these two periods in government to ascertain the story of the 20th century state???s relationship to sex. My thesis is a political analysis that incorporates genealogy in its focus on law as indicative of the state. It incorporates a detailed study of primary artefacts of the state: detailed analyses of seemingly discontinuous moments including individual court cases, individual Committees, individual treatises and opinions and political memoirs. I conclude by drawing together my overall argument, that during the 20th century there has been no radical change of the modern state in regard to sex, and that the success of the permissive mythology has generally blinded us to this fact. Not only have we mistaken the nature of the permissive state as concerned with evolution, we have erroneously been persuaded of the blanket repression of the Victorian state. The big break, the discontinuity of the 1960s, that often is described as ???revolutionary??? (and inevitable in the teleology of progress), is a re-configuration of the same object as the Victorian state. The permissive state enacts the latest stage in the great Victorian project of embodying the sexual subject ??? a subject at once embodied and created as an object of control.

The use of stem cells to augment the healing of bone defects represents an exciting new frontier in many surgical disciplines. This thesis verified the in vitro osteogenic capability of ovine Adipose Derived Stromal Stem Cells (ADSCs) and Bone Marrow Derived Stem Cells (BMSCs), examined the in vivo osteogenic potential of the ovine ADSCs population and compared it to the in vivo osteogenic potential of ovine BMSCs. The pilot study used both cell populations, expanded and osteogenically stimulated ex vivo and mixed with resorbable porous hydroxyapatite-calcium carbonate bone graft substitute (ProOsteon 200R, Interpore Cross International, Irvine, CA). This study demonstrated the preferred length of time in ex vivo osteogenic stimulation of the ADSCs and BMSCs populations to promote the bone formation in vivo to be 7 days. In the main ovine study which employed 48 wethers, ADSCs and BMSCs were expanded, stimulated osteogenically for 7 days, mixed with ProOsteon 200R and deposited in an autologous manner into a bilateral medial femoral condyle confined cancellous defect. In vivo performance of 7 treatment groups was examined: 1. ???Bone autograft/ADSCs???, 2. ???Bone autograft/BMSCs???, 3. ???ProOsteon 200R/ADSCs???, 4. ???ProOsteon 200R/BMSCs???, 5. ???Bone autograft???, 6. ???ProOsteon 200R??? and 7. ???Empty defect???. The time-points were: 2, 4, 8 and 12 weeks. The analysis of the harvested specimens used the following methods: computerized tomography, histological assessment, histomorphometry and immunohistochemistry. There was a progressive and time dependant increase in woven bone in the defects treated with ADSCs and BMSCs across all time points. The amount of woven bone in the defects treated with the combination of ADSCs and ProOsteon 200R was comparable with the defects treated with the combination of BMSCs and ProOsteon 200R. In addition, the combination of ADSCs or BMSCs and ProOsteon 200R demonstrated no more bone than ProOsteon 200R alone. However, the ???Autograft/BMSCs??? and ???Autograft/ADSCs??? groups demonstrated a remarkable increase in the amount of woven bone formed in the defects across all time points when compared with all other groups. In addition, the amounts of bone formed in the ???Autograft/BMSCs??? and the ???Autograft/ADSCs??? group were comparable across all timepoints. The results of these studies support the hypothesis that ovine ADSCs and BMSCs populations in combination with the bone autograft can increase the formation of woven bone in the autologous orthotopic environment in a comparable manner.

The combustion efficiency of pulverised coal injection PCI is an important factor influencing stability and productivity of the blast furnace. It is affected by coal properties and the process conditions employed for combustion. Economic considerations have driven blast furnace operators to commission a wide range of coals, which differ in type and rank. The main objective of the current project is to study the influence of different operating conditions on combustion performance of coal and to examine the role of coal minerals and their transformations on low and high temperature reactivity. The combustion performance of three PCI coals was investigated under a range of combustion conditions including three combustion temperatures of 900??C, 1200??C and 1500??C, and a range of oxygen concentrations in the gas phase at 1200??C in a drop tube furnace (DTF). The low temperature oxygen reactivity of pyrolysed chars was also measured by observing weight loss in a thermogravimetric (TGA) furnace at 600??C. Physical and chemical properties of pyrolysed and partially combusted chars were characterised using a range of analytical tools including X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, BET N2 surface area and Hg porosity. The correlation between char properties and char reactivity at low and high temperatures was also investigated. All three coal samples experienced deactivation during progressive combustion at 1200??C and 23%v O2 i.e. there was a decrease in the reaction rate with proceeding combustion. The carbon structure of the chars became increasingly ordered as quantified by an increase in crystallite height and a decrease in the amorphous carbon proportion in char. Partially combusted char had much higher surface area than a pyrolysed one, which can be attributed to the opening of enormous number of closed pores as combustion proceeds. However, this increase in surface area did not show a direct correlation with char reactivity. Average particle size of ash increased with increasing degree of combustion due to fusion and agglomeration of coal minerals. Under these conditions, carbon structural ordering of char was found to be one of the key factors primarily responsible for loss of char reactivity during combustion. Increasing oxygen content in the gas stream from 23% to 35% at 1200??C resulted in a significant improvement in the combustion performance of three coals, with burnout increasing from ~65% to up more than ~95%. However, increasing oxygen level beyond 35% did not lead to any further significant improvements. Coal burnout was also enhanced by increasing temperature in the range 900??C to 1500??C, such that the improvement was much more rapid in the higher temperature range of 1200??C to 1500??C. This could be related to increased reaction rates at higher temperatures. Pyrolysed char reactivity was measured at low temperature 600??C and 10%v O2 using TGA. The results indicated that the presence of iron and calcium minerals could result in enhanced char reactivity. Coal minerals underwent increased fusion and melting as the combustion temperature was increased. At 1500??C, most ash particles were molten. The level of basic oxides in ash as well as the extent of association between aluminosilicates and basic oxides enhanced the proportion of molten phases. Fusing and melting behaviour of ash particles was found to influence char combustion reactivity at high temperatures. Ash melting on the char surface may hinder gas accessibility to the reactive surface of char, thereby decreasing char burnout. The molten ash particles may coalesce and cover char surface or these molten particles may partially/completely block char pores. The amount of slag phases in ash and the distribution of minerals in char are expected to have a significant influence on ash-char interactions at high temperatures. In summary, the study shows that inorganic matter present in coal can affect coal combustion in a number of ways. Inorganic minerals, such as iron and calcium catalyse char oxidation at low temperatures. On the other hand, these minerals may act as fluxing agents at high temperatures, which could lower the melting point of aluminosilicates minerals in char. The molten phases of ash may restrict the accessibility of oxygen to carbon in char through physical obstruction, thereby, retard char oxidation.