Freeform optics provide excellent performance for a wide variety of applications. However, obtaining an accurate freeform surface measurement is highly challenging due to its large aspheric/freeform departure. It has been proven that SCOTS (Software Configurable Optical Test System), an advanced deflectometry system developed at the University of Arizona, can measure the departure of a freeform surface from the desired shape with nanometer accuracy. Here, a new data processing technique was used to measure a freeform surface without any prior knowledge of the shape of the surface. Knowing only the geometry of one point on the test surface, this method can take a blind measurement of a freeform surface and arrive at the true surface through iterative construction.

No description available.

Clean laboratory technology and pure culture techniques were combined to determine the effect of ectomycorrhizae on the uptake of lead by Pinus sylvestris L. seedlings. By culturing the ectomycorrhizal fungus, Pisolithus tinctorius (Pers.) Coker and Couch, in liquid Hagem's medium with different concentrations of lead (0, 50, 250 and 500 ng/g sol), it was determined that the fungus readily takes up lead from such and aqueous medium. It was also determined that the pH of the medium controls the amount of lead in solution that can be taken up by the fungus. A series of growth studies where Pisolithus was cultured on Hagem's agar indicated that the growth of the fungus is reduced when the lead concentration in the medium is approximately 25 ug/g sol. It was estimated that a lead concentration of approximately 1,000 ug/g sol may completely inhibit the growth of the fungus. Furthermore, it was determined that the acetate ion is inhibitory to the growth of Pisolithus. By culturing mycorrhizal and non-mycorrhizal seedlings of P. sylvestris and analyzing the seedlings' roots, stems and leaves for their lead concentrations, it was determined that ectomycorrhizae facilitate the uptake of lead. Ectomycorrhizal roots can take up more lead from a vermiculite/hydroponic solution mixture because of their greater surface area and exploration of vermiculite surfaces as well as their increased production of lead solubilizing acids. This additional lead found in mycorrhizal roots, however, does not appear to be translocated to the above ground portions of the seedlings. This increased uptake of lead by mycorrhizal roots is expected to take place in natural soil systems as well. / Master of Science

This thesis is a study of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century manuscript and print contexts of Older Scots romance. Building on recent developments in Middle English romance scholarship and Older Scots book history, it seeks to contextualise the surviving corpus of Older Scots romances in light of their unique material witnesses and contemporary cultural milieu. Chapters 1 to 8 focus respectively on the following Older Scots romances: the Octosyllabic Alexander, the Buik of King Alexander the Conquerour, Florimond, Lancelot of the Laik, King Orphius and Sir Colling, Golagros and Gawane and Rauf Coilyear, the Scottish Troy Book, and Clariodus. The conclusion assesses and evaluates the most significant and recurring features of these chapters and reveals how they cumulatively deepen our understanding of the book-producing and book-owning culture of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Scotland. The conclusion also looks forward to new witness- conscious editions of Older Scots romance that endeavour to represent as far as possible a text’s unique and idiosyncratic manuscript and print contexts. In each chapter I examine the set romance’s primary contexts of composition, including authorship, date, and first audience, as well as its secondary publication contexts. A full palaeographical, codicological and bibliographical description of each manuscript and print is provided, with details of when, where and by whom each witness was produced. Information about when and where that witness was read is also given, with details of the owners and readers where known. Significant attention is paid to the use of titles, rubrication and mise-en-page to reveal the trends and bibliographical codes in copying and presentation. Where appropriate, the compilation choices made by scribes and readers are also analysed. Careful assessments of these are shown to aid modern thematic and comparative literary interpretation. Most notably, each chapter of this thesis also provides much-needed new information about fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Scottish literary communities. Several significant and often-overlapping circles of scribes, readers and owners are revealed. The familial, professional and geographical associations between these groups of producers and consumers are traced and consequently new book- publishing and book-owning networks are documented. In further original work, a number of hitherto unknown texts, scribes and readers are also successfully identified.

Thesis (M.A.)--Duquesne University, 2007. / Title from document title page. Abstract included in electronic submission form. Includes bibliographical references (p. 211-224).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Murdoch University, 2004. / Thesis submitted to the Division of Arts.

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In translating the Aeneid as faithfully as possible, Gavin Douglas saw himself as an innovator, breaking with the tradition of adaptation and instead presenting a faithful literary translation. In the Prologues to his Eneados Douglas discusses his theoretical principles, comments on the work of his predecessors in the transmission of Virgil in English, and raises issues pertinent to the contents of the Books of the Aeneid. However, the Prologues also reflect Douglas's perception of a conflict between his religious and artistic impulses, and show his gradual resolution of this conflict inherent in his dual role as critical artist and churchman. By placing Douglas's Prologues in the context of prologues by other medieval writers, Chapter I shows that Douglas's new approach to faithful literary translation is matched by his independence in the employment of conventional literary devices, which he revitalizes by using them in a meaningful way rather than applying them because custom so dictates. Chapter II focuses on the narrator in his various and divergent roles, especially those of the poet and priest; while these two roles initially seem to make conflicting demands on the translator-narrator, he eventually resolves the conflict and recognizes a sublime harmony between divine and human artistry. Chapter III examines Douglas's practice of translation in light of his own theory; even though Douglas tends to "modernize" Virgil, he produces a genuine translation in which his avowed aims are largely realized. Chapter IV focuses on the connexions of the individual Prologues with their respective Books and demonstrates that even though the translation itself is generally accurate, the interpolation of the Prologues with their re-interpretation of common archetypes as foreshadowings of Christian doctrine causes a radical transvaluing of the Aeneid as a Christian allegory. Chapter V shows that there is not only a linkage between the Prologues and Books, but that the Prologues are also connected to each other by the narrator's search for a theologically acceptable yet also artistically satisfying re-creation of a non-Christian work. Aeneas and the translator-narrator are thus engaged in parallel quests during which they have to overcome physical obstacles and resolve inner conflicts before they can reach their final destinations. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

Possession is a legal concept applying in a variety of legal contexts. In Scottish legal literature, however, there is little in-depth writing on the law of possession, and much of the law is uncertain. This thesis is intended to be a contribution to remedying this deficiency as far as one aspect of the law of possession is concerned, the physical element of possession of corporeal moveable property. As part of this, in the hope that this comparative and historical consideration would shed some light on the issues raised, the law of Rome is considered, along with the law of France, Germany and South Africa, as examples of the Civil Law tradition of legal systems drawing on Roman law. English law is also considered. The thesis is thus able to draw on both of the major traditions influencing the development of Scots law, namely the Civil Law and the Common Law. In this way, the thesis is able to consider the extent to which the Scots law on possession has been influenced by these two traditions. The thesis begins giving an outline of the law of possession and the place of the physical element within it. The remainder of the thesis considers in detail the physical element and its role in both the acquisition and the loss of possession of corporeal moveable property. One of the difficulties with this is that many different areas of law use a concept called 'possession', and views differ as to the extent to which it is appropriate to talk of a general concept of possession. It is argued in the thesis that a general test can be developed for the physical element of possession, based on control of the property in a manner consistent with the assertion of a right to the property. This test is then developed through consideration of how it applies in a number of specific factual contexts.

As the title of this study suggests, the following pages are concerned with ballads which refer to death by hanging or burning. This subject brings an aesthetic world into the realms of the real and presents an artistic conceptualisation of both the 'real' - historic facts - and the 'abstract' - human emotions. In terms of the 'real', ballads which refer to actual events can be compared to historic documentation in order to ascertain the extent of interaction between the ballad world and historic fact. In terms of the 'abstract', execution and death are emotive subjects, so how emotional potential is controlled within the tradition is important, for even those reports which claim to be impersonal accounts of executions can be disturbing, even though centuries may separate a reader from the event. Formalising the language is one method of control and this study will discuss formulas and structures related to execution scenes. The formulas also provide points of connection between ballads which otherwise would seem to be unrelated, such as Mary Hamilton and Hobie Noble. The ballads discussed come from different repertoires, regions and centuries. Thus, those scenes which have been retained are more than a personal or regional variant of that scene; it has become a cultural interpretation and it may prove rewarding to consider what precedents exist for such interpretations and whether these are historic, national - specifically Scottish - or part of a wider aesthetic interpretation of death and justice. The printed ballad trade which existed in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Scotland has also been referred to, in order to provide alternative interpretations of the spectacle of execution and the popular presentation of the condemned. It may be that one tradition relies more closely on reality than the other, or it may be that two conflicting fictions exist.