The thesis examines eight twelfth-century English manuscripts with inhabited initials occupied by human heads. Such initials, also filled with foliage, struggling humans and animals, are a pronounced feature of English Romanesque manuscript illumination. Appearing after the Norman Conquest in manuscripts produced for ecclesiastical communities as part of the Anglo-Norman emphasis on theological reading, inhabited initials with human heads are the work of monastic and professional artists. An image encountered by a monk or a canon while engaged in meditative reading known as the lectio divina, the head assumes many delightful, evocative and inventive forms in order to attract the attention of the ruminating reader. The thesis analyses the application of a human head to an initial and sets initials into a framework of monastic reading in order to suggest ways in which audiences might have read these letters. Exploring the interaction between human heads and their surrounding texts, the thesis examines how inhabited initials function within selected twelfth-century English manuscripts. While some initials have been designed by the artist to hold specific meaning in relation to the text, others allow the reader to invest them with his own meaning. By creating a dialogue with the text that complements the reading process, the human heads in twelfth-century English initials may be regarded as text markers.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

A knowledge of structure is crucial to the understanding of inorganic solids and polymers. Neutron and X-ray powder diffraction are two powerful complementary techniques which can be used in the structural characterisation of a variety of crystalline materials. Chemical and electrochemical oxygen intercalation techniques involving both aqueous and non-aqueous systems, have been investigated for a number of crystalline inorganic oxides. The pyrochlore structure has been discovered to be a new class of host for the chemical intercalation of oxygett and the interstitial solid solution of Ce2Zr2O7+x based on this structure-type has been investigated. Intercalation in this system is found to involve an unusual mechanism of oxygen displacement. The structures of other complex metal oxides have also been elucidated using a combination of X-ray and neutron powder diffraction, including those of Li29Zr9Nb3O40 and Li29Zr9.6Ta2.4O40. The doping behaviour of magnesium into the technologically important material lithium niobate has also been studied using these techniques. Polymer electrolytes are a class of ionically conducting solid phases formed by the dissolution of salts in ion co-ordinating macromolecules. The relationship between the crystalline and amorphous phase of the polymer-salt complex PEO3.LiCF3SO3 has been examined by variable-temperature powder X-ray diffraction. This has shed new light on the relationship between the crystalline and amorphous structures of polymer electrolytes. Finally, the crystal structure of the polymer-salt complex PEO4:RbSCN has been determined.

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the immediate price and volume effects or investment advisory services on stocks recommended. The methodology used in this study consisted of the selection of sixty-four stock recommendations published by three major advisory services, Value Line Investment Service, Moody's Investors Survey, and Standard and Poor's Outlook. The recommendations of Moody's and Standard and Poor’s were divided into strong and weak categories for testing purposes. Price and volume data for each stock were collected and adjusted for general market movements for a period of fifty-six days--twenty-two days prior to the date of recommendation and thirty-three days after that date. Twenty-one day centered moving averages were computed for each stock from the fifty-six adjusted price and volume observations. Thirty-six price and volume indices were developed for each stock from the ratios of the adjusted price and volume data to its corresponding twenty-one day average. The price and volume index numbers were then grouped into classifications according to service and according to average daily trading volume. An analysis of variance was utilized to test the data in order to determine the findings. The findings proved to be inconclusive in showing an immediate price and volume effect in general. The findings did indicate that stocks with a low average daily trading volume appeared to show significant movement as the result of being recommended. / M.S.

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This thesis sets out to describe sign systems for communication using Axiomatic Functionalism as its theoretical framework. In doing so, the thesis also provides an important test to the claim of Axiomatic Functionalism that by using its premisses the semiotician (or linguist) has all the necessary "tools" s/he needs for the analysis and description (the one implies the other) of any semiotic system for communication (including Language). Using Axiomatic Functionalism the author attempts to describe a number of graphic semiotic systems for communication. He finds that for an adequate description of the signa (a generic term which includes various types of signs and symbols) in these systems further theoretical notions and definitions are needed. Discussing these the author concludes that for Axiomatic Functionalism to maintain its claim of universal applicability to any sign system for communication it needs to incorporate in its premisses the notions and definitions proposed here. The thesis begins by a brief general introduction to semiotics. This is followed by a discussion of what constitutes scientific theories in relation to semiotics (including linguistics). The relevant aspects of Axiomatic Functionalism are then discussed, after which certain original theoretical notions are introduced. These include: “mnemonic economy" (with its many manifestations including "mnemonic/pictorial motivation"), the "general organising principle" ("systemic principle"), "principle of coinage" (a mechanism for generating signa), and "signum-family”. Having established the necessary theoretical background, the author proceeds to describe various graphic “signum-systems" discussing their important features and establishing the types of signum they consist of and, consequently, the types of system they are, their complexity and the "plerology” (grammar) of each system, where present. The systems discussed include various systems used in books on plants; a system used in a book on "lace knitting"; a system used in working models; a system used in providing information about paintings in the "Classics of World Art" series of books; and a system used in the "Automobile Association" handbooks. Further Axiomatic Functionalist theoretical notions, directly relevant to the systems described thereafter, are then introduced. This is followed by a description of three systems: two computer "languages", the "Hexadecimal notation" and the "binary code", and the "Library of Congress classification system". A final brief "Epilogue" concludes the thesis.

Universiẗat, Diss., 2003--Heidelberg.

When platelets come into contact with collagen, they adhere to it then release the contents of their dense granules and granules and aggregate together. This interaction is dependent on the conformation and degree of multimerisation of the collagen as well as the experimental conditions. The fibrillar state of collagen varies with the pH and ionic strength of the solution so collagen was immobilised on to an insoluble support in order that its fibrillar state should remain unchanged during exposure to platelets and during modification. The first support used was polyamide sheet, but although the resulting collagen-strips induced measurable platelet adhesion and aggregation, there was insufficient collagen present to induce adequate aggregation or serotonin release to be of use in investigating these interactions. Sepharose 6B was then used as a support for collagen and this proved satisfactory, inducing approximately 20% serotonin release from platelets. The release reaction is nearer to the initial interaction between platelets and collagen than aggregation, which is the final step, and it therefore allows a better insight into the conditions necessary for the interaction to take place. The amino groups of collagen-Sepharose were modified in three ways, using succinic anhydride, trinitrobenzene sulphonic acid and dinitrofluorobenzene. Succinylation almost abolished serotonin release while di-and trinitrophenylation enhanced this reaction. amino groups of collagen are therefore not in themselves important in the recognition of collagen by platelets and the subsequent reactions, since they were blocked by the modifications. The suggestion is made that succinylation disrupted the fibrils because of the change in charge whereas di- and trinitrophenylation merely neutralised the charge and permitted realignment of any previously misaligned areas of the molecule. These results reinforce theories that the correct quaternary structure of collagen must be present in order that it will be recognised by platelets.

Over the last two decades, the study of 'repetition effects' in behavioural and Event Related Potential (E.R.P) research has originated and added to theories of memory organisation. In this series of experiments, behavioural and E.R.P correlates of human and monkey visual memory were investigated, using the repetition effect as the main index of processing, and manipulating the semantic content of the experimental stimuli. The research has a large founding in established results from lexical studies. The use of pictorial material in this series of experiments extends these results to more general visual memory functions. E.R.P recordings were taken from two monkeys trained extensively to perform a matching-to-sample picture recognition task. The waveforms generated by novel instances of highly familiar pictures were compared to those elicited by repeats. In a further study with unfamiliar pictures the repetition of items had an effect on the evoked potentials for only one of the two subjects. Two further studies were made with one monkey viewing unfamiliar and familiar face pictures. In both these studies, an early potential emerged which was more positive in response to faces than to objects. In order to investigate the importance of the semantic content of stimulus items for memory processes, human E.R.Ps generated by novel and repeated presentations of 'meaningful' and 'meaningless' pictorial images were recorded. Repetition of the meaningful (but not meaningless) pictures attenuated the N400 component associated with the first presentation of a stimulus.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Meteorology, 1963. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 50-51). / by John Robert Clark. / M.S.