Catullus 61 to 68 have not received the attention they deserve. Critics have either analyzed the poems in isolation or attempted superficial and selective examinations of the group as a whole. By scrutinizing the poet's use of recurrent vocabulary in poems 61 to 68, it is possible to see a definite cyclic progression throughout the poems, and a clear development of the various themes relating to love and marriage. Poem 61 presents, on the surface at least, a positive view of marriage. Certain negative elements are subtly introduced (the bride's hesitation, the potential infidelity of the groom, the role of the gods) which create some tension in the poem; but at the end, the marriage is consummated. Poem 62 brings the underlying tensions of poem 61 into the open. The boys' legalistic view of marriage overcomes the girls' emotional outcry against it; but it is the intensity and imagery of the girls' stanzas that remain in the reader's mind. Poem 63 plunges the reader into the world of mythology; but the presentation of Attis' relationship with Cybele in terms of a marriage follows logically from poems 61 and 62. The violence associated with Attis' negative "marriage" with Cybele causes the vox poetae to condemn such a relationship and wish it away from his experience. Poem 64 is a lengthy reflection on every aspect of love and marriage presented so far in the cycle. The apparently positive marriage of Peleus and Thetis is contrasted with the negative non-marriage of Theseus and Ariadne. Imagery found in the three previous poems is recalled here; the connotations associated with it eventually alter the reader's (and the poet's) perception of the outer story from positive to negative. The vox poetae returns to condemn all ages, all relationships. The vox poetae also opens poem 65, in which the poet begins to rework the material and themes from the previous poems. The death of his brother, following logically on the deaths caused by Achilles in poem 64, colours the poet's ability to write; but his devotion to his friend overcomes his inability and a glimmer of hope emerges in .the cycle. Poems 66 and 67 present the opposite extremes of love: the ideally happy marriage of Ptolemy and Berenice, and the scandal-ridden relationships mentioned by the door-bride. Poem 68 stands as a coda or summary of the entire cycle. As in poems 65 and 66, the poet is able to overcome his inability to write through the influence of his friend. He recalls the happy days of his relationship with his goddess-bride; but the allusion to the Laodamia myth is unfortunate, as it reminds the poet for the third time of his brother's death. Moreover, the details of the myth underscore how dangerous and potentially disastrous is his own relationship with his beloved. Poems 61 to 67 show that no relationship, no marriage can be truly happy. As poem 68 concludes, the poet reassesses his attempts to idealize his relationship with his beloved. He finally accepts her faults and resolves to love her on her terms. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

An architectural component can change urban environment. A great window to the city, typologically bounded in the form an ice rink is proposed in the post-industrial city of Baltimore. This proposal should be seen as part of the city that is undergoing a transition from an industrial to a commercial city. The ice rink is proposed on one of the vacant industrial sites along the water front, a site of historical importance. Its location in relation to the city offers a strong visual and the necessary physical connection to the city and the surrounding existing recreational spaces. The panoramic view of the city, a compelling element of the site became the driving force for type, organization and orientation of the building. The view of the city is constructed as an architectural element and the movement in the building as a visual event. The structure of the building is also developed to facilitate this visual progression. A wall, which complements the visual event, is introduced to act as backdrop for the building against the existing city sky line. The proposed urban corridor extends the existing fabric of the city. This corridor continues inside the building to culminate in the offering of the city as an architecturally framed panorama, a window to the city. / Master of Architecture

published_or_final_version / Transport Policy and Planning / Master / Master of Arts

This thesis proposes a novel fully digital technique for the estimation and correction of the DAC error in multi-bit delta sigma ADCs. The structure of the DAC error is indicated through a simple model for unit-element based DACs. The impact of the DAC error on the performance of ADC is then analyzed. Various techniques dealing with the DAC error are described and their drawbacks are pointed out. Based on the nature of the DAC error and the surrounding signals, a fully digital method to estimate the error from the ADC output and remove it is proposed. Simulation results are shown to support the effectiveness of the method. Simulations also show that the proposed technique can work together with the technique of adaptive compensation for quantization noise leakage in cascaded delta sigma (MASH) ADC cases. These two techniques are the foundation for the design of high speed, high resolution delta sigma ADCs with relaxed requirements on the analog circuits. To verify the proposed technique, an experimental MASH ADC was built, including the design and fabrication of a chip of a second-order multi-bit delta sigma ADC in a 1.6��m CMOS technology. The measured results show that the proposed DAC correction technique is highly effective. / Graduation date: 2004

Delta-sigma modulators are currently a very popular technique for making high-resolution analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters (ADCs and DACs). Most delta-sigma modulators in production today employ single-bit quantization because a 1-bit DAC is inherently linear, whereas a multi-bit DAC is not. Were it not for this drawback, the use of multi-bit quantization would improve a delta-sigma modulator's performance by increasing the modulator's resolution or increasing the modulators's bandwidth, while at the same time whitening the quantization noise and improving modulator stability. This thesis explores the element-mismatch-shaping technique, which attenuates the noise caused by static element mismatch in a multi-level DAC by a method similar to delta-sigma modulation. Existing element-matching techniques are reviewed and some analytical and architectural work related to the realization of mismatch-shaping logic is presented. A custom switched-capacitor (SC) DAC is used to verify various element mismatch-shaping algorithms. Experiments show that mismatch-shaping can reduce harmonic distortion by up to 30 dB. / Graduation date: 1998

In this project, I develop Nietzsche's account of truth based on the two perspectives of nihilism and health and conclude that his varied analyses and comments from the early and late periods of his writing are compatible. Nietzsche's discussions of truth are divided into two parts. First, the discussion of the concept of truth. Second, he analyzes modern culture that considers the highest type the one that seeks truth. His discussion of the concept of truth involves a critique of the thing-in-itself and Correspondence Theory. The subtle point to get is that Nietzsche never denies the existence of a real world in which we live. However, his critique is of human's ability to arrive at this truth. I argue that his attack on the concept of the thing-in-itself in the late notebooks is aimed at showing the metaphysical incoherence of the concepts of thinghood and self-identity and not on the concept of an unknown grounding existence. As for the second discussion, I argue that Nietzsche condemns truth-seeking insofar as it is held as the highest ideal in a culture. When this occurs, the will to truth in cultures and individuals becomes tyrannical and stems the growth of the person as a complete self, with varied drives and impulses. Finally, I conclude that Nietzsche hopes to overcome nihilism by breaking the tyranny that has taken over society which is governed by a will to nothingness, which depreciates the value of life. He understands the immensity of the task of overcoming this will, and understands that he can only be part of a larger context of combating nihilism. Accordingly, he sees his role as reintroducing man to his body and his physiology and to bring back the experimentation and playful seriousness in the art of living life as opposed to the life-sacrificing and life-denying type that thinks of the pursuit of truth as a relinquishment of life.

In this project, I develop Nietzsche’s account of truth based on the two perspectives of nihilism and health and conclude that his varied analyses and comments from the early and late periods of his writing are compatible. Nietzsche’s discussions of truth are divided into two parts. First, the discussion of the concept of truth. Second, he analyzes modern culture that considers the highest type the one that seeks truth. His discussion of the concept of truth involves a critique of the thing-in-itself and Correspondence Theory. The subtle point to get is that Nietzsche never denies the existence of a real world in which we live. However, his critique is of human’s ability to arrive at this truth. I argue that his attack on the concept of the thing-in-itself in the late notebooks is aimed at showing the metaphysical incoherence of the concepts of thinghood and self-identity and not on the concept of an unknown grounding existence. As for the second discussion, I argue that Nietzsche condemns truth-seeking insofar as it is held as the highest ideal in a culture. When this occurs, the will to truth in cultures and individuals becomes tyrannical and stems the growth of the person as a complete self, with varied drives and impulses. Finally, I conclude that Nietzsche hopes to overcome nihilism by breaking the tyranny that has taken over society which is governed by a will to nothingness, which depreciates the value of life. He understands the immensity of the task of overcoming this will, and understands that he can only be part of a larger context of combating nihilism. Accordingly, he sees his role as reintroducing man to his body and his physiology and to bring back the experimentation and playful seriousness in the art of living life as opposed to the life-sacrificing and life-denying type that thinks of the pursuit of truth as a relinquishment of life.

Postponement is widely recognised as an approach that can lead to superior supply chains, and its application is widely observed as a growing trend in manufacturing. Form postponement (FPp) involves the delay of final manufacturing until a customer order is received and is commonly regarded as an approach to mass customisation. However, while much is written in the literature on the benefits and strategic impact of FPp, little is still known about its application. Thus this research project aims to address how FPp is applied in terms of the operational implications within the manufacturing facility. Here the ‘postponed’ manufacturing processes are performed in the factory where the preceding processes are carried out. An in-depth case study research design was developed and involved case studies at three manufacturing facilities, which provided diverse contexts in which to study FPp applications. Each case study incorporated multiple units of analysis which were based around product groups subject to different inventory management policies – FPp, make to order (MTO) and make to stock (MTS). The same research design was used in each study and involved both qualitative and quantitative evidence. Qualitative evidence was gathered via structured interviews and included the operational changes required to apply FPp in a previously MTO and MTS environment. Eleven quantitative variables, providing a broad based measurement instrument, were compared across the three units of analysis to test the hypotheses. This combination of qualitative and quantitative evidence in the case studies helped to triangulate the research findings. Comparison between the three case studies provided further conclusions regarding operational implications that were context specific and those which were not. The research concludes that the manufacturing planning system presents a major obstacle to the application of FPp in a MTO and MTS environment. In spite of this, and even when the FPp application is flawed, the benefits of FPp still justify its application. The research also contributes two frameworks: one which determines when FPp is a viable alternative to MTO or MTS; and another that illustrates the major operational implications of applying FPp to a product exhibiting component swapping modularity.

In this project, I develop Nietzsche’s account of truth based on the two perspectives of nihilism and health and conclude that his varied analyses and comments from the early and late periods of his writing are compatible. Nietzsche’s discussions of truth are divided into two parts. First, the discussion of the concept of truth. Second, he analyzes modern culture that considers the highest type the one that seeks truth. His discussion of the concept of truth involves a critique of the thing-in-itself and Correspondence Theory. The subtle point to get is that Nietzsche never denies the existence of a real world in which we live. However, his critique is of human’s ability to arrive at this truth. I argue that his attack on the concept of the thing-in-itself in the late notebooks is aimed at showing the metaphysical incoherence of the concepts of thinghood and self-identity and not on the concept of an unknown grounding existence. As for the second discussion, I argue that Nietzsche condemns truth-seeking insofar as it is held as the highest ideal in a culture. When this occurs, the will to truth in cultures and individuals becomes tyrannical and stems the growth of the person as a complete self, with varied drives and impulses. Finally, I conclude that Nietzsche hopes to overcome nihilism by breaking the tyranny that has taken over society which is governed by a will to nothingness, which depreciates the value of life. He understands the immensity of the task of overcoming this will, and understands that he can only be part of a larger context of combating nihilism. Accordingly, he sees his role as reintroducing man to his body and his physiology and to bring back the experimentation and playful seriousness in the art of living life as opposed to the life-sacrificing and life-denying type that thinks of the pursuit of truth as a relinquishment of life.

Peer-to-peer file sharing has overturned the traditional way to communication, and has great impacts on society. But as so far, there are only few researches concerning this problem from users¡¦ point of view, why and how users take use of it is still equivocal. Therefore in this research, I examined the motivations and behavior of P2P uses with uses and gratifications approach, and further more, whether motivations for P2P uses explain users¡¦ behaviors and considered the contribution of individual characteristics are also examined. As for motivations, a factor analysis revealed five motivations to use P2P file sharing software: Information seeking, Convenience, Library storage, Interpersonal communication and Self-achievement. Motivations are related to individual characteristics, including gender, age, the duration of internet use and P2P use, income, and education. Several motivations and individual differences predict P2P use. And grouping users with cluster analysis, this research found three types of users: highly involved users, low involved users, and those who just want to download files. Highly involved users launch software frequently, have the strong motivations and are willing to share files with others. On the contrary, low involved users use less frequently, and have the relatively weak motivation of P2P use. Those who just download files are unwilling to share files with others.