This thesis is divided into two parts. In the first part we focus mainly on certain aspects of the AdS/CFT correspondence. The AdS/CFT correspondence is a proposed duality between Type IIB superstring theory on AdS5 x S5 and N = 4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. In the BMN limit string states located in the center of AdS5 rotate quickly around the equator of the S5 and correspond, in the dual theory, to operators constructed as long chains of sub-operators. This structure of the operators can be formulated as a spin chain and by using the Bethe ansatz their properties can be obtained by solving a set of Bethe equations. Having infinitely many sub-operators, there are methods for solving the Bethe equations in certain sectors. In paper III finite size corrections to the anomalous dimensions in the SU(2) sector are calculated to leading order. Inspired by the chain structure of the corresponding operators, the theory of string bits treats the strings as a discrete sets of points. This theory suffers from the problem of fermion doubling, a general pathology of fermions on a lattice. In paper II we show how to adjust the theory in order to avoid this problem and, in fact, use the fermion doubling to our advantage. The second part of the thesis studies the low energy behaviour of SU(2) Yang-Mills theory in 4 space-time dimensions. In paper I we perform numerical calculations on an effective action for this theory. We propose the existence of a knotted trajectory within the dynamics of this effective action.

This is a study of choro in São Paulo, with a brief ethnography of seven-string guitarists. Studies of choro have routinely favored Rio de Janeiro, the birthplace of choro. This work focuses on São Paulo because it has a rich choro tradition, as well as an active and creative contemporary choro scene that has frequently been overshadowed by Rio de Janeiro's. There are three main parts to this study. The first part provides background information, including the major guitarists that have contributed to the development of the guitar's role in choro, and brief reviews of the most important literature on the subject of choro. The second part discusses São Paulo, my methodology, and the music scholars that have informed this study. The second part is the analytical base for the study, in which I examine the song, "Sampa" (1978), by Caetano Veloso, and interpret the uses, functions, and concepts of choro, drawing from Alan Merriam. Part II also includes a brief discussion of the resurgence of choro in the 1970s. This work proposes that choro has as its principal functions both musical and social education. The musical education choro provides is aural, notational, historical, and improvisational. The social education choro provides is one of an idealized mythological "racial democracy." The third and final part is a brief ethnography of the contemporary choro scene in São Paulo, with a focus on seven-string guitarists, and a descriptive account for the contextualization of choro. / text

This thesis is devoted to the study of two important applications of gauge-gravity duality: the cosmological singularity problem and conformal fluid dynamics. Gauge-gravity duality is a concrete dual relationship between a gauge theory (such as electromagnetism, the theories of weak and strong interactions), and a theory of strings which contains gravity. The most concrete application of this duality is the AdS/CFT correspondence, where the theory containing gravity lives in the bulk of an asymptotically anti-de-Sitter space-time, while the dual gauge theory is a deformation of a conformal field theory which lives on the boundary of anti-de-Sitter space-time(AdS). Our first application of gauge-gravity duality is to the cosmological singularity problem in string gravity. A cosmological singularity is defined as a spacelike region of space-time which is highly curved so that Einstein’s gravity theory can be no longer applied. In our setup the bulk space-time has low curvature in the far past and the physics is well described by supergravity (which is an extension of standard Einstein gravity). The cosmological singularity is driven by a time dependent string coupling in the bulk theory. The rate of change of the coupling is slow, but the net change of the coupling can be large. The dual description of this is a time dependent coupling of the boundary gauge theory. The coupling has a profile which is a constant in the far past and future and attains a small but finite value at intermediate times. We construct the supergravity solution, with the initial condition that the bulk space-time is pure AdS in the far past and show that the solution remains smooth in a derivative expansion without formation of black holes. However when the intermediate value of the string coupling becomes weak enough, space-time becomes highly curved and the supergravity approximation breaks down, mimicking a spacelike singularity. The resulting dynamics is analyzed in the dual gauge theory with a time dependent coupling constant which varies slowly. We develop an appropriate adiabatic expansion in the gauge theory in terms of coherent states and show that the time evolution continues to be smooth. We cannot, however, arrive at a definitive conclusion about the fate of the system at very late times when the coupling has again risen and supergravity again applies. One possibility is that the energy which has been supplied to the universe is simply extracted out and the space-time goes back to its initial state. This could provide a model for a bouncing cosmology. A second possibility is that dissipation leads to a thermal state at late time. If this possibility holds, we show that such a thermal state will be described either by a gas of strings or by a small black hole, but not by a big black hole. This means that in either case, the future space-time is close to AdS. We then apply gauge-gravity duality to conformal fluid dynamics. The long wavelength behavior of any strongly coupled system with a finite mean free path is described by an appropriate fluid dynamics. The bulk dual of a fluid flow in the boundary theory is a black hole with a slowly varying horizon. In this work we consider certain fluid flows which become supersonic in some regions. It is well known that such flows present acoustic analogs of ergoregions and horizons, where acoustic waves cannot propagate in certain directions. Such acoustic horizons are expected to exhibit thermal radiation of acoustic waves with temperature essentially given by the gradient of the velocity at the acoustic horizon. We find acoustic analogs of black holes in charged conformal fluids and use gauge-gravity duality to construct dual gravity solutions. A certain class of gravitational quasinormal wave modes around these gravitational backgrounds perceives a horizon. Upon quantization, this implies that these gravitational modes should have a thermal spectrum. The final issue that we study is fluid-gravity duality at zero temperature. The usual way of constructing gravity duals of fluid flows is by means of a small derivative expansion, in which the derivatives are much smaller than the temperature of the background black hole. Recently, it has been reported that for charged fluids, this procedure breaks down in the zero temperature limit. More precisely, corrections to the small derivative expansion in the dual gravity of charged fluid at zero temperature have singularities at the black hole horizon. In this case, fluid-gravity duality is not understood precisely. We explore this problem for a zero temperature charged fluid driven by a low frequency, small amplitude and spatially homogeneous external force. In the gravity dual, this force corresponds to a time dependent boundary value of the dilaton field. We calculate the bulk solution for the dilaton and the leading backreaction using a modified low frequency expansion. The resulting solutions are regular everywhere, establishing fluid-gravity duality to this order.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University, 1996. / Issued also on microfilm. Includes tables. Sponsor: Lenore M. Pogonowski. Dissertation Committee: Harold F. Abeles. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 123-125).

Thesis (A.Mus.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: A. Adviser: Donna A. Buchanan. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 137-144) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

No description available.

In this thesis we explore various aspects of Calabi-Yau (CY) manifolds and com- pactifications of the heterotic string over them. At first we focus on classifying symmetries and computing Hodge numbers of smooth CY quotients. Being non- simply connected, these quotients are an integral part of CY compactifications of the heterotic string, aimed at producing realistic string vacua. Discrete symmetries of such spaces that are generically present in the moduli space, are phenomenologically important since they may appear as symmetries of the associated low energy theory. We classify such symmetries for the class of smooth Complete Intersection CY (CICY) quotients, resulting in a large number of regular and R-symmetry examples. Our results strongly suggest that generic, non-freely acting symmetries for CY quotients arise relatively frequently. A large number of string derived Standard Models (SM) were recently obtained over this class of CY manifolds indicating that our results could be phenomenologically important. We also specialise to certain loci in the moduli space of a quintic quotient to produce highly symmetric CY quotients. Our computations thus far are the first steps towards constructing a sizeable class of highly symmetric smooth CY quotients. Knowledge of the topological properties of the internal space is vital in determining the suitability of the space for realistic string compactifications. Employing the tools of polynomial deformation and counting of invariant Kähler classes, we compute the Hodge numbers of a large number of smooth CICY quotients. These were later verified by independent cohomology computations. We go on to develop the machinery to understand the geometry of CY manifolds embedded as hypersurfaces in a product of del Pezzo surfaces. This led to an interesting account of the quotient space geometry, enabling the computation of Hodge numbers of such CY quotients. Until recently only a handful of CY compactifications were known that yielded low energy theories with desirable MSSM features. The recent construction of rank 5 line bundle sums over smooth CY quotients has led to several SU(5) GUTs with the exact MSSM spectrum. We derive semi-analytic results on the finiteness of the number of such line bundle models, and study the relationship between the volume of the CY and the number of line bundle models over them. We also imply a possible correlation between the observed number of generations and the value of the gauge coupling constants of the corresponding GUTs. String compactifications with underlying SO(10) GUTs are theoretically attractive especially since the discovery that neutrinos have non-zero mass. With this in mind, we construct tens of thousands of rank 4 stable line bundle sums over smooth CY quotients leading to SO(10) GUTs.

abstract: The legacy of the great double bassist and pedagogue Joseph Prunner (1886-1969) includes his scale and arpeggio exercise book, Progressive Studies for the Double Bass, composed in 1955. Progressive Studies was originally written for Prunner's students at the Bucharest Conservatoire and was not intended for a wide publication. In the work Prunner presents major and harmonic and melodic minor scales that are performed in one octave and then extended diatonically through all their modes, progressing through this pattern for three octaves, followed by a series of arpeggio exercises. These exercises are based on a modernized fingering system and are offered in the traditional positions and in what Prunner called "Fixed-Position" scales. A series of chromatic scale exercises are also included that follow the template of the major and minor scales. The study at hand is a revision and expansion of Prunner's work. The edition presented here intends to preserve the information that Prunner provided, fix the errors made in editing, and expand the study greatly by increasing the range of the exercises, providing more arpeggio exercises, creating melodic and harmonic minor "Fixed-Position" scales and arpeggio exercises, and including the study of double-stops. In support of the revised and updated version of Progressive Studies, this study includes a biography of Joseph Prunner and a summary of the importance of the type of scale and arpeggio practice the collection of exercises supports. An explanation of the revisions made to Prunner's work and recommendations for using the exercises also precede the new edition. / Dissertation/Thesis / D.M.A. Music 2012

This thesis is directed toward teachers who work primarily with music degree students on the collegiate level. Pedagogy is simply too often "hit or miss" in a student's degree curriculum, and yet the reality is that most musicians will have to teach at some point in their careers, whether they realize it as students or not. This thesis provides a model for how to holistically integrate pedagogy into all aspects of the performance curriculum, so that string performance students are provided with the necessary tools to be both excellent performers and teachers, regardless of whether they ever take a pedagogy class. This is accomplished through: the examination of survey results regarding how schools are incorporating the National Association for Schools of Music requirements and recommendations for the integration of pedagogy into course curricula; an overview of survey results reporting how string performers and educators feel about the quality of the education they received in regards to preparedness for artist string teaching; and a discussion of how to create a holistic curriculum for performance and pedagogy that encompasses the three main areas of most string performance curriculums (the private studio, chamber music, and orchestra). The overarching goal of this thesis is to build on the rich tradition of string playing and teaching that already exists, by introducing a curriculum that will holistically educate the student as both performer and pedagogue. At the heart of this approach is the need for fostering a "see one, do one, teach one" mentality in students.

Concertino for Flute, Timpani, and String Orchestra is a three movement piece that blends Western European forms with Korean idioms. The following essay addresses pitch materials, melodic structure, rhythm, form, instrumentation, vertical structures, and developmental procedures used in the work.