My dissertation employed intellectual historian Michel Foucault’s notion of biopolitics—which can be most broadly parsed as the political organization of life—to examine the way the lives of Aboriginal people were regulated and surveilled in relation to settler European norms. The study is a focused investigation into a topic with global ramifications: the governance of race and sexuality and the effect of such governance on the production of apparently inclusive cultural productions within the public spheres. I argue that the way in which subaltern peoples have been governed in the past and the way their cultures have been appropriated continue to be in the present is not extraneous to but rather formative of what is often misleadingly called “the” public sphere of dominant societies. In the second part, I analyze the legacies of this biopolitical moment and emphasize, particularly, the cultural politics of affect and trauma in relation to this (not quite) past. Authors addressed include: Xavier Herbert, P. R. Stephensen, Rex Ingamells, Kim Scott, Alexis Wright, and others. I also examine Australian Aboriginal policy texts througout the twentieth century up to the "Bringing Them Home" Report (1997).

This thesis examines how Colombian women within the city of Atlanta utilize Facebook as a parallel public sphere, a cultural phenomenon through which the silenced use mediums of popular culture to discuss private and public dilemmas (Dewey 2009). Through ethnographic research in Atlanta, I analyze how these young women use Facebook as they negotiate their identity through the multiple contexts of their everyday lives. Drawing from feminist critiques, I explore whether Facebook provides an alternative to the traditional public sphere, while also investigating how power structures influence freedom of expression online. Through an international network of friends, these women tackle topics of discrimination, personal struggles, and individual accomplishments. By addressing pertinent issues, such as immigration reform policies, through a public forum, Colombian women become activists in order to disseminate information and educate others. This study explores the parallel public sphere, as well as its possible implications for diasporic communities, by examining the power of social connections and the performance of public personas through an arena not bounded by physical space.

The enhanced discursive opportunity structures that the Internet enables has inspired a momentous revolution in the Nigerian media landscape. This dissertation chronicles the emergence and flowering of the citizen and alternative online journalism of the Nigerian diasporic public sphere located primarily in the United States. Using case-study research, it profiles the major diasporan online citizen media outlets and highlights instances where these geographically distant citizen media sites shaped and influenced both the national politics and policies of the homeland and the media practices of the domestic media formation. The study makes the case that while it is customary in the scholarship on sovereignty, state-civil society relations, and diaspora studies to emphasize domination and one-dimensionality in cultural flows, the participation of members of the Nigerian digital diaspora in the politics and discourses of their homeland, from their exilic locations in the West through the instrumentality of online citizen media, illustrates that citizens, especially in the age of the Internet, are not mere powerless subjects and receivers of informational flows from the institutions of the state and corporate mass media but can be active consumers and producers of informational resources and even purveyors of political power in ways that amply exemplify trans-local reciprocality. It also argues that the Nigerian diaspora media might very well be a prototype of an evolving, Internet-enabled, trans-local, and mutual informational and cultural exchange between the educated deterritorialized ethnoscapes of peripheral nations whose exile in the West endues them with symbolic and cultural capital and the private institutions and governments of their homelands. The study recommends a comparative study of the online citizen journalism of Third World virtual diasporas in the West.

This thesis describes an investigation of the velocity field in a fluid around a solid sphere undergoing transient motion parallel to, and midway between, two plane walls. Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) was used to measure the velocity at many discrete locations in a plane that was perpendicular to the walls and included the centre of the sphere. The transient motion was achieved by releasing the sphere from rest and allowing it to accelerate to terminal velocity. <p>To avoid complex wake structures, the terminal Reynolds number was kept below 200. Using solutions of glycerol and water, two different fluids were tested. The first fluid was 100%wt glycerol, giving a terminal Reynolds number of 0.6 which represents creeping flow. The second solution was 80%wt glycerol yielding a terminal Reynolds number of 72. For each of these fluids, three wall spacings were examined giving wall spacing to sphere diameter ratios of h/d = 1.2, 1.5 and 6.0. Velocity field measurements were obtained at five locations along the transient in each case. Using Y to denote the distance the sphere has fallen from rest, velocity fields were obtained at Y/d = 0.105, 0.262, 0.524, 1.05, and 3.15. <p>It was observed that the proximity of the walls tends to retard the motion of the sphere. A simple empirical correlation was fit to the observed sphere velocities in each case. A wall correction factor was used on the quasi-steady drag term in order to make the predicted unbounded terminal velocity match the observed terminal velocity when the walls had an effect. While it has been previously established that the velocity of a sphere is retarded by the proximity of walls, the current research examined the link between the motion of the sphere and the dynamics of the fluid that surrounds it. By examining the velocity profile between the surface of the sphere at the equator and the wall, it was noticed that the shear stresses acting on the sphere increase throughout the transient, and also increase as the wall spacing decreases. This is due to the walls blocking the diffusion of vorticity away from the sphere as it accelerates leading to higher shear stresses. <p>In an unbounded fluid, the falling sphere will drag fluid along with it, and further from the sphere, fluid will move upward to compensate. It was found that there is a critical wall spacing that will completely prevent this recirculation in the gap between the sphere and the wall. In the 80%wt glycerol case, this critical wall spacing is between h/d = 1.2 and 1.5, and in the 100%wt glycerol case the critical wall spacing is between h/d = 1.5 and 6.0.

Communications scholarship faces a convergent crisis. Research on networks includes the role of information networks in supporting social movements, networked civil society, the information society, and new forms of communication. But while communications literature utilizes a variety of approaches to describe the impact of networked communications, a dearth of technical expertise permeates scholarship. Despite the discourse on networks potentially bridging previously distinct disciplines, the lack of a fundamental understanding of communications networks and relationships between technical and socio-political networks remains a consistent gap. This thesis will investigate the extent that opposition to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in Europe constitute a networked public sphere. Through studying the role of civl society and the networked public in the European ACTA debate, the horizontal and vertical dimensions of socio-political and communications technology networks are not only illuminated, but the importance of analyzing the mechanisms through which vertical hierarchies enclose the public sphere become abundantly clear. This research provides the foundation for an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the relationship between information technology and socio-political networks and offers lessons for information policy makers, communications scholars, and networked civil society within the context of European democracy.

The problem of counting ramified covers of a Riemann surface up to homeomorphism was proposed by Hurwitz in the late 1800's. This problem translates combinatorially into factoring a permutation with a specified cycle type, with certain conditions on the cycle types of the factors, such as minimality and transitivity. Goulden and Jackson have given a proof for the number of minimal, transitive factorizations of a permutation into transpositions. This proof involves a partial differential equation for the generating series, called the Join-Cut equation. Furthermore, this argument is generalized to surfaces of higher genus. Recently, Bousquet-M&eacute;lou and Schaeffer have found the number of minimal, transitive factorizations of a permutation into arbitrary unspecified factors. This was proved by a purely combinatorial argument, based on a direct bijection between factorizations and certain objects called <em>m</em>-Eulerian trees. In this thesis, we will give a new proof of the result by Bousquet-M&eacute;lou and Schaeffer, introducing a simple partial differential equation. We apply algebraic methods based on Lagrange's theorem, and combinatorial methods based on a new use of Bousquet-M&eacute;lou and Schaeffer's <em>m</em>-Eulerian trees. Some partial results are also given for a refinement of this problem, in which the number of cycles in each factor is specified. This involves Lagrange's theorem in many variables.

We consider a communication method, where the sender encodes n classical bits into 1 qubit and sends it to the receiver who performs a certain measurement depending on which of the initial bits must be recovered. This procedure is called (n,1,p) quantum random access code (QRAC) where p > 1/2 is its success probability. It is known that (2,1,0.85) and (3,1,0.79) QRACs (with no classical counterparts) exist and that (4,1,p) QRAC with p > 1/2 is not possible. We extend this model with shared randomness (SR) that is accessible to both parties. Then (n,1,p) QRAC with SR and p > 1/2 exists for any n > 0. We give an upper bound on its success probability (the known (2,1,0.85) and (3,1,0.79) QRACs match this upper bound). We discuss some particular constructions for several small values of n. We also study the classical counterpart of this model where n bits are encoded into 1 bit instead of 1 qubit and SR is used. We give an optimal construction for such codes and find their success probability exactly---it is less than in the quantum case. Interactive 3D quantum random access codes are available on-line at http://home.lanet.lv/~sd20008/racs

This thesis considers the social, economic and ideological climate in the German Democratic Republic in the last decade of its existence (the 1980s) when excessive labor demands lead the country to import tens of thousands of “contract workers” from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Focusing primarily on theoretical contradictions in GDR socialism, and their impact on the day to day lives Vietnamese workers, I will argue that ideologically freighted pronouncements of “socialist fraternity” with Vietnam functioned to obscure the true, economic reasons for labor importation.

As a result of manufacturing processes, real surfaces have roughness and surface curvature. The real contact occurs only over microscopic contacts, which are typically only a few percent of the apparent contact area. Because of the surface curvature of contacting bodies, the macrocontact area is formed, the area where microcontacts are distributed randomly. The heat flow must pass through the macrocontact and then microcontacts to transfer from one body to another. This phenomenon leads to a relatively high temperature drop across the interface. Thermal contact resistance (TCR) is a complex interdisciplinary problem, which includes geometrical, mechanical, and thermal analyses. Each part includes a micro and a macro scale sub-problem. Analytical, experimental, and numerical models have been developed to predict TCR since the 1930's. Through comparison with more than 400 experimental data points, it is shown that the existing models are applicable only to the limiting cases and none of them covers the general non-conforming rough contact. The objective of this study is to develop a compact analytical model for predicting TCR for the entire range of non-conforming contacts, i. e. , from conforming rough to smooth sphere-flat in a vacuum. The contact mechanics of the joint must be known prior to solving the thermal problem. A new mechanical model is developed for spherical rough contacts. The deformation modes of the surface asperities and the bulk material of contacting bodies are assumed to be plastic and elastic, respectively. A closed set of governing relationships is derived. An algorithm and a computer code are developed to solve the relationships numerically. Applying Buckingham Pi theorem, the independent non-dimensional parameters that describe the contact problem are specified. A general pressure distribution is proposed that covers the entire spherical rough contacts, including the Hertzian smooth contact. Simple correlations are proposed for the general pressure distribution and the radius of the macrocontact area, as functions of the non-dimensional parameters. These correlations are compared with experimental data collected by others and good agreement is observed. Also a criterion is proposed to identify the flat surface, where the influence of surface curvature on the contact pressure is negligible. Thermal contact resistance is considered as the superposition of macro and micro thermal components. The flux tube geometry is chosen as the basic element in the thermal analysis of microcontacts. Simple expressions for determining TCR of non-conforming rough joints are derived which cover the entire range of TCR by using the general pressure distribution and the flux tube solution. A complete parametric study is performed; it is seen that there is a value of surface roughness that minimizes TCR. The thermal model is verified with more than 600 data points, collected by many researchers during the last 40 years, and good agreement is observed. A new approach is taken to study the thermal joint resistance. A novel model is developed for predicting the TCR of conforming rough contacts employing scale analysis methods. It is shown that the microcontacts can be modeled as heat sources on a half-space for engineering applications. The scale analysis model is extended to predict TCR over the entire range of non-conforming rough contacts by using the general pressure distribution developed in the mechanical model. It is shown that the surface curvature and contact pressure distribution have no effect on the effective micro thermal resistance. A new non-dimensional parameter is introduced as a criterion to identify the three regions of TCR, i. e. , the conforming rough, the smooth spherical, and the transition regions. An experimental program is designed and data points are collected for spherical rough contacts in a vacuum. The radius of curvature of the tested specimens are relatively large (in the order of m) and can not be seen by the naked eye. However, even at relatively large applied loads the measured joint resistance (the macro thermal component) is still large which shows the importance of surface out-of-flatness/curvature. Collected data are compared with the scale analysis model and excellent agreement is observed. The maximum relative difference between the model and the collected data is 6. 8 percent and the relative RMS difference is approximately 4 percent. Additionally, the proposed scale analysis model is compared/verified with more than 880 TCR data points collected by many researchers. These data cover a wide range of materials, surface characteristics, thermal and mechanical properties, mean joint temperature, directional heat transfer effect, and contact between dissimilar metals. The RMS difference between the model and all data is less than 13. 8 percent.

The problem of counting ramified covers of a Riemann surface up to homeomorphism was proposed by Hurwitz in the late 1800's. This problem translates combinatorially into factoring a permutation with a specified cycle type, with certain conditions on the cycle types of the factors, such as minimality and transitivity. Goulden and Jackson have given a proof for the number of minimal, transitive factorizations of a permutation into transpositions. This proof involves a partial differential equation for the generating series, called the Join-Cut equation. Furthermore, this argument is generalized to surfaces of higher genus. Recently, Bousquet-M&eacute;lou and Schaeffer have found the number of minimal, transitive factorizations of a permutation into arbitrary unspecified factors. This was proved by a purely combinatorial argument, based on a direct bijection between factorizations and certain objects called <em>m</em>-Eulerian trees. In this thesis, we will give a new proof of the result by Bousquet-M&eacute;lou and Schaeffer, introducing a simple partial differential equation. We apply algebraic methods based on Lagrange's theorem, and combinatorial methods based on a new use of Bousquet-M&eacute;lou and Schaeffer's <em>m</em>-Eulerian trees. Some partial results are also given for a refinement of this problem, in which the number of cycles in each factor is specified. This involves Lagrange's theorem in many variables.