ABSTRACT "Music for the Mad: A study of the madness in Purcell's mad songs" Ester Lebedinski, Uppsala University, Sweden, Department of Musicology, 2009. Madness was a stock topic in seventeenth-century drama, and music a compulsory feature on the Restoration stage. Henry Purcell's contributions to the latter are abundant, and include the popular combination of madness and music in his mad songs for Thomas Durfey's comedies. This essay aims at exploring the depiction of madness through music, verbal text and dramatic context in Purcell's mad songs for Durfey's plays A Fool's Preferment (1688), The Richmond Heiress (1693) and part I and III of The Comical History of Don Quixote (1694 and 1696 re­spectively). Particular emphasis is laid on text illustration and the songs' placement in the dramatic context. Madness is discussed as a deviation from the accepted norm, as the anormal demarcated from the normal. Conclusively, Purcell's mad songs are characterized by their variousness e.g. rapid changes between keys, styles, moods and subject matters, as opposed to the relative conti­nuousness of songs not depicting madness, and their sometimes exaggerated word paintings. Purcell's music does not independently express madness, but the illustration of madness is linked to the verbal text and the dramatic context, highlighted and completed through Pur­cell's music.

In this thesis work, the background of atmospheric turbulence degradation in imaging was reviewed and two aspects are highlighted: blurring and geometric distortion. The turbulence burring parameter is determined by the atmospheric turbulence condition that is often unknown; therefore, a blur identification technique was developed that is based on a higher order statistics (HOS). It was observed that the kurtosis generally increases as an image becomes blurred (smoothed). Such an observation was interpreted in the frequency domain in terms of phase correlation. Kurtosis minimization based blur identification is built upon this observation. It was shown that kurtosis minimization is effective in identifying the blurring parameter directly from the degraded image. Kurtosis minimization is a general method for blur identification. It has been tested on a variety of blurs such as Gaussian blur, out of focus blur as well as motion blur. To compensate for the geometric distortion, earlier work on the turbulent motion compensation was extended to deal with situations in which there is camera/object motion. Trajectory smoothing is used to suppress the turbulent motion while preserving the real motion. Though the scintillation effect of atmospheric turbulence is not considered separately, it can be handled the same way as multiple frame denoising while motion trajectories are built.

This paper presents a set of Image Registration, Image Integration, interpolation and image restoration and other technology, the number of low-resolution images synthesized high-resolution image. Relative to the existing image fusion technology, the method provided in this paper has more advantages, such as: (1) high-precision value; (2)low computation cost; (3)a compact system; (4) applicable to noise images; (5) robotic and automatic performance.

A constructed wetland was built in southern Taiwan in 2007 for local stream water purification and ecosystem improvement. The inflow rate was approximately 1,350 m3/day. The wetland influents were mainly from the local streams containing secondary wastewater from hog farms located in the upper catchment of the wetland and drainage water from the farmlands. The influent water contained organic contaminants and nutrients, which needed to be removed. The mean measured hydraulic loading rate, hydraulic retention time, water depth, and total volume of wetland system were 0.1 m/day, 5.5 days, 0.7 m, and 7,800 m3, respectively. In this study, water, sediment, and plant samples were collected and analyzed quarterly for each wetland basin during the two-year investigation period. Results show that more than 77% of total coliforms (TC), 78% of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), 88% of total nitrogen (TN), and 96% of ammonia nitrogen were removed via the constructed wetland system. Thus, the wetland system has a significant effect on water quality improvement and is able to remove most of the pollutants from the local stream through natural attenuation mechanisms. Results from the ecological investigation show that more than 50 different plant species and 45 different animal species were observed in the wetland system although this wetland had been created for less than four years. Except for stream water quality improvement and rehabilitating the natural ecosystem, this wetland also offered more water assessable eco-ponds and eco-gardens for public. This constructed wetland has become one of the most successful multi-function constructed wetlands in Taiwan.

Given the past history and future risk of storm surge in the United States, alternative storm protection techniques are needed to protect vital sectors of the economy and population, particularly within southeastern Louisiana. It is widely hypothesized that coastal wetlands offer protection from storm surge and wave action, though the extent of this protection is unknown due to the complex physics behind vegetated flow dynamics. This thesis presents numerical modeling results that estimate the relative sensitivity of waves and storm surge to characteristics embodied by coastal wetlands. An idealized grid domain and 400 km2 (20 km by 20 km) marsh feature provide a controlled environment for evaluating marsh characteristics, including bottom friction, elevation, and continuity. Marsh continuity is defined as the ratio of healthy marsh area to open water area within the total wetland area. It is determined that increased bottom friction reduces storm surge levels and wave heights. Through the roughening of the bottom from sandy to covered with tall grass, it is estimated that waves may be dampened by up to 1.2 m at the coast, and peak surge may be reduced by as much as 35%. The lowering of marsh elevation generally increases wave heights and decreases surge levels, as expected. A 3.5 m decrease in marsh elevation results in as much as a 2.6 m increase in wave height, and up to a 15% decrease in surge levels. Reductions in marsh continuity enhance surge conveyance into and out of the marsh. For storms of low surge potential, surge is increased by as much as 70% at the coast due to decreasing marsh continuity from 100% to 50%, while for storms of high surge potential, surge is decreased by 5%. This indicates that for storms of high surge potential, a segmented marsh may offer comparable surge protection to that of a continuous marsh. Wave heights are generally increased within the marsh due to the transmission of wave energy through marsh channels. Results presented in this thesis may assist in the justification of coastal wetland mitigation, and optimize marsh restoration in terms of providing maximum storm protection.

Loss of wetland habitats across the nation is staggering and continues, especially in urbanizing areas. Thus, wetland restoration has become a priority. However, questions remain regarding system function and biotic communities. We studied a constructed floodplain wetland complex near Dallas, Texas. We sought to improve understanding of wetland ecosystem development under the influence of different approaches to wetland restoration in an urbanizing landscape. In the wetland complex, 10 constructed sloughs, approximately 70m by 15m, were designated for this study. Our experiment monitored the establishment of aquatic plant and invertebrate communities under different experimental conditions. In 5 sloughs, 5 native perennial hydrophyte species were transplanted in blocks in each slough, with the remaining 5 sloughs unplanted. Portions of each slough were caged to determine the effects of protective caging. Using 1m2 caged and neighboring uncaged areas as quadrats, we sampled vegetation and the invertebrate community over two years to determine the effects of restoration treatmentsSlough planting did not result in statistically different levels of plant cover. However, invertebrate abundance was greater in planted sloughs, and plant composition was different, comprised more of perennial species in planted sloughs than in unplanted sloughs. Caging did not have an effect on plant or invertebrate communities. However, changes due to time resulted in significant increases in plant cover and invertebrate abundance and shifts in community composition. Four of 5 transplanted species were emergent growth forms. Emergent cover and the remaining species, Potamogeton nodosus, a floating-leafed plant, accounted for invertebrate community variation. Transplanted emergent species did not fare well, though other emergent species did colonize the site, along with widespread coverage by submerged Najas guadalupensis. Potamogeton spread rapidly, colonizing unplanted sloughs, and this will likely affect community development across the site. Plant and invertebrate richness values were low, likely due to hydrological extremes and the short period of time since construction. Water level fluctuations resulted in plant communities dominated by obligate wetland plants, though drought stress took a toll on survival of plants and invertebrates in late summer. Community development and system function were dependent mostly upon time and hydrology. on the communities.

This dissertation shows that early modern female playwrights were shaped by and helped to shape commercial literary marketplaces that were increasingly affected by the rise of credit, shifting exchange values, and unstable notions of trust, interest, and economic motivation. By looking at how their plays appropriated and responded to financial language present in popular forms of publications such as pamphlets, ballads, and accounting guidebooks, we find that female playwrights understood the discourse of credit in ways that were particularly important for female readers and theatergoers and employed it in their writing for the stage. My study illustrates how their plays represent credit as always inherently tied to the potential risk involved in the “business” of being a woman on the marriage market, a mother with a fortune to pass on, or a widow with a business to maintain. In this project, I analyze the city comedies of Aphra Behn, the pseudonymous Ariadne, Mary Pix, and Susanna Centlivre and conclude that their works constitute a narrative bridge between the financial discourse that appears before them in conduct books and advice manuals of the Restoration and after them in the eighteenth-century novel. Making these women and their London comedies a focal point, we can see how they employed the period’s financial discourse to highlight the problems associated with broken promises, counterfeit wills, and the supposed power of contract. My research demonstrates how these playwrights and their works play a critical role in accounting for the trajectory of financial discourse in eighteenth-century culture and literature prior to the “birth” of the English novel. “Risky Business” moves beyond a discussion of female investors or money in literature and, instead, offers a more nuanced understanding of the ways women writers were impacted by the rise of paper credit outside of and prior to fiction. The research presented in this project offers a new account of the way early modern female readers, writers, and theatergoers, were influenced by an increasingly complex financial discourse, a more detailed understanding of the relationship between economic and literary history, and a new way of conceptualizing the commercial female playwright.

By 2006, the U.S. government has spent $15 billion to address the degradation of urban streams, including erosion of stream banks, disconnection of rivers from the floodplain, and disturbance of surface runoff pathways. Bank stabilization is one of the most prevalent restoration activities in urban stream restoration. Unfortunately, most stream restoration projects have been undertaken without a pre- or post-evaluation of the impact of stream restoration on real value in the area. All restoration projects beg the question: Did the money spent on the project result in greater benefits to stream stability as well as to adjacent properties? The Walnut Creek watershed, located in Austin, Texas, has experienced varying stages of urbanization since the 1990s. One of the streams, the Walnut Creek tributary, was restored in 2003. The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of stream restoration on housing values. We applied the hedonic pricing method to evaluate the changes in housing value associated with housing and environmental characteristics. Repeat ground photography was utilized to assess stream restoration activities at spatial and temporal scales. Our results suggest that the stream restoration project resulted in significant positive impacts on housing values in the periods of restoration (8.3%) and restoration adjustment (10.7%). However, the project did not enhance the values of houses on the floodplain. In addition, results show that erosion had continuous negative impacts on housing values. Overall, the restoration project contributed to the greater benefits during the restoration adjustment period right after restoration by an increase of 1% of the average housing value for each property on the restoration site. In this study, the benefits of stream restoration project were minimal since bank stabilization was the main activity considered in this stream restoration project. Nevertheless, restoration enhances the stability of the stream banks, minimizes erosion problems, and presents an enhanced aesthetic beauty of the stream in Austin, Texas.

The Uncompahgre River in Ouray, CO, was modified in 1996 from a braided river system to a meandering river channel. Large boulders of riprap were placed along designed meanders to prevent erosion and enable the development of permanent human structures on the flood plain. Deposition of gravel bars in the modified channel occurs annually during the summer. This gravel is "mined" by the City of Ouray; however, the effects of this excavation and the original modification were never assessed. This study provides an assessment by quantifying cross-sectional area change, cumulative grain-size distributions, shear stresses, slopes, and sinuosities using traditional survey methods. In addition, volume change of a gravel bar inside the modified channel was estimated using extreme oblique photographs (>45 degrees from nadir) that were obtained from nearby cliffs. Close-range photogrammetry was used in the natural channel downstream to evaluate photogrammetric methods using different lenses, image sensors, and camera geometries. Both traditional and photogrammetric methods clearly indicated significant deposition in the modified channel, whereas erosion occurred directly downstream from the modified channel, but did not occur at a reach 1.5 km downstream. In the natural channel, no cross-sectional area change occurred, grains were poorly sorted, and the longitudinal slope was ~four times steeper than the modified channel. Shear stress ratios were used as an erosion threshold, which did not correlate with actual cross-sectional area change, but a decrease in shear stress ratios from May 2011 to September 2011 were associated with erosion. Average RMSE values for DEMs created from extremeoblique photographs of a gravel bar in May 2011 and September 2011 were 0.140 m and 0.324 m, respectively. Using a DEM of difference with a t-statistic filter revealed that 115m3 of gravel was deposited. The Uncompahgre River showed similar geomorphic characteristics to other rivers in southwest Colorado, however, the slope of the natural and modified channels were much steeper than other rivers. Extreme-oblique photography and unconventional sensors both yielded reliable results, showing that these atypical techniques can be used in terrestrial photogrammetric applications such as, post-restoration assessments, as long as proper base-to-height ratios are achieved.

The subject of this thesis is House No: 1 in Zenginler District B&uuml / y&uuml / k &Ccedil / ikmaz in Antakya. It is a remarkable example of traditional houses dating back to 19th century in Antakya. The aim of this study is to prepare the restoration project of the building which is far too important for the city with its location, richness of its spatial and architectural elements, interventions have been done and provide to maintain its role in the city by re-functioning it. The thesis includes the detailed description of the present state of the site and the selected building, historical background of Antakya, comparative study and restitution scheme. Finally, the restoration project including the intervention decisions and a proposal for a new function are prepared according to the evaluation of the information gathered throughout the study. There are several steps to prepare the restoration project of a traditional building. The first step is the historical research of both the selected building and the city where it is located. It is important, as it constitutes a background for the study. In the second step of the project, the preparation of the complete graphical and verbal information of the building to the document the present conditions of it. Site survey is the base for this step. After all the information is gathered at the site, they are presented by graphical and verbal ways. Documentation includes the analyses of the building in various aspects like materials, construction technique and deformations. The third step is the comparative study of the building between the same period traditional Antakya houses. These analyses are not only important for the position of the building in Antakya but also form a base for the restitution project. The fourth step restitution consists of evaluation of traces to grasp the alterations done on the original building and thus it can be possible to establish the original scheme of the building. In the last step, the restoration project is prepared. It covers the interventions that should be applied to the building and the proposal for the new function.