Composition is an approach to "art through structure" (Dow, 1997). Following Arthur Wesley Dow's work, Composition 1997, this thesis consists of a series of photographic and architectural exercises, demonstrating each of Dow's elements and principles of composition. Though Dow does not define his work as theory nor go to any length to establish one, he strongly advocates for training in the fundamentals of composition. Oneness in art is the study of synthetically related spaces across an array of disciplines. This is the main idea behind what this work has come to call Dow's Theory of Oneness. That composition as a structural approach to the space-arts can act as a Rosetta stone, giving artists a broad spectrum of discipline, being "at once architects, sculptors, decorators and picture-painters" (Dow, 1997). / Master of Architecture / Composition in the most general sense is the study of what something is made of. In what Dow refers to as the space-arts, painting, sculpting, drawing, architecture and even music are all arts in which space is the primary medium being influenced to form a composition. Dow's ways of creating harmony consist of three elements and five principles that greatly influence how a work of art is built up. Study of these ways of creating harmony leads to an appreciation for art, beauty, and the splendor of nature. It is only through this act of appreciation that a composer finds harmony (Dow, 1997). In a sense, composition of fine art is seeded in appreciation and flowers with a oneness.

Although only a few of us have been to the desert, we all have a clear and chromatic image of it. Our mental representation of these landscapes has been formed throughout the years through photographic media and film. A few well known visual and literary works that contributed to the myth of the desert include: Le Petit Prince (1943), Antoine de Saint-Exupéry The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926), T.E Lawrence Lawrence of Arabia (1962), David Lean Theeb (2014), Naji Abu Nowar This fascination led to an increase in demand for travel to these mythological places. Such an increase raises particular challenges for the desert and its inhabitants that include a demand for services and infrastructure and an appetite to learn more about the site. The phenomenon creates new issues that require creative solutions and interventions. How can architecture provide spaces as a solution to mitigate these issues? The thesis examines the question in the context of the Wadi Rum Protected Area (WRPA), a UNESCO world heritage site that is located in the Arabian Desert region. It proposes a cultural center that reflects the ecological and cultural significance of the site. The architecture of the building converges elements from the desert with elements from local bedouin culture. The building aims to create spaces for educational opportunities to the bedouin and the tourist in order to enhance the visitor's experiences and enrich the local's knowledge. / Master of Architecture / This thesis examines the issues that are associated with an increase in tourism in the Wadi Rum Protected Area (WRPA), a UNESCO World Heritage site that is located in the Arabian Desert Region. The thesis attempts to provide a solution through architecture and urban planning strategies that include the proposition of educational spaces for the tourist and the local. These architectural spaces have the ability to add value to the tourist's experience and enrich the local community in the future.

Primary productivity is a fundamental ecosystem process driven by vascular plants in most terrestrial ecosystems and by microbes in more extreme ecosystems. In dense associations, microbial organisms can form visually conspicuous layers on sediment, soil, and rock surfaces, called microbial mats and biological soil crusts (i.e., biocrusts). Both microbial mats and biocrusts consist of cyanobacteria, moss, diatoms, and green algae, and also support diverse heterotrophic taxa. These communities exist in harsh environments worldwide such as hypersaline environments, tundra ecosystems, and hot and cold deserts where they are foundational taxa, providing most of the primary production and nitrogen fixation, as well as promoting cohesion and stability to soil surfaces. In the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica, microbial mats are the main source of fixed carbon in lentic and lotic environments, but their contribution to soil carbon and nitrogen cycling has not been systematically examined. In my dissertation, I investigated the relationships between microbial mats and the soil environments in which they occur. Using a combination of field surveys, soil analyses, and remote sensing, my objectives were to examine the influence of microbial mats and biocrusts on underlying soils and model the main drivers of their distribution and abundance. In Chapter 2, I investigated the relationships between underlying soil chemistry and microbial mat distribution, composition, and function in the Taylor Valley, finding that microbial mats enrich underlying soils, contributing to soil organic carbon and nitrogen. In Chapter 3, I assessed the spectral detectability of patchy biocrusts using multispectral satellite imagery to examine the environments in which biocrusts occur, finding that spectral unmixing of satellite imagery can successfully detect the presence of biocrust and its association with seasonal snow patches. As a direct continuation, in Chapter 4, I created a habitat suitability model using machine learning algorithms to determine the distribution and abundance of biocrusts in the Lake Fryxell basin. I found that biocrusts contribute a significant amount of carbon to the surface soil in the Lake Fryxell basin, with biocrust presence primarily driven by snow frequency, moisture content, and salinity. This dissertation contributes to ongoing questions about the sources of energy fueling soil food webs and regional carbon balance in the Taylor Valley, and how we can use remote sensing techniques for researching these critical soil communities in the dynamic Antarctic landscape. / Doctor of Philosophy / Photosynthesis is the process where plants and other organisms use sunlight to transform carbon dioxide into chemical energy. This is crucial because it provides the energy and nutrients that support all other life forms. In this dissertation, I focused on colonial microorganisms, which are the main primary producers in extreme environments, like deserts. I used a combination of field surveys and satellite imaging to study these organisms in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica, which is a harsh polar desert environment that lacks vascular plants. Microbes colonize the surface of soil and form mm-cm thick microbial mats and biological soil crusts (called biocrusts). These organisms are found within the glacial-melt streams that flow on and off for only a few weeks each year, and they also occur on the stream margins and other periodically wet areas like near snow patches. This dissertation investigates the ecological importance of microbial mats and biocrusts, the ability to measure where they are using satellite imagery, and how much organic material they contribute to the broader landscape. Field work in the McMurdo Dry Valleys and laboratory analyses were required for each of these chapters. In Chapter 2, I investigated the relationships between microbial mats and the soils below them, and I found that microbial mats increase the organic matter and nutrient content in the soils. In Chapter 3, I assessed whether satellite imagery could be used to study the presence of sparse biocrusts and examined the environments in which biocrusts occur. I discovered that satellite imagery can successfully detect the presence of biocrust and that biocrusts occurred near melting snow patches. Lastly, in Chapter 4, I created models to determine where biocrusts occur in the Lake Fryxell basin and why biocrusts occur in those areas. I found that biocrusts occur over a significant area of the Lake Fryxell basin, containing a lot of organic material, and that biocrusts thrive in wet areas near snow patches where the soils are less salty. This dissertation contributes to ongoing questions about the sources of nutrients fueling soil food webs and contributing to the amount of organic material in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, and how we can use satellite imagery for monitoring these important soil communities in the changing Antarctic landscape.

No description available.

Unearthing Edward Abbey's spiritual philosophy is not an easy task. One must sift through Abbey's humor, sort through Cactus Ed's flamboyant character, look under the veneer of this character, and beyond Abbey's overt objective of convincing readers to defy the destruction of wilderness, and only then does the spiritual philosophy of Abbey become visible. To understand his perception of spirituality, one must define what constitutes a mystic and determine what American theological philosophies mystics tend to adopt. Once these are defined, one can apply those principles to Abbey's Desert Solitaire, and determine that Abbey is a nature mystic who adheres to the ecocentric based immanence theology. This theology is contrary to the Judeo-Christian based emanation theology which supports anthropocentricism and resourcism.

In adult vertebrates, cardiovascular regulation is accomplished by numerous systems with neural, hormonal and local components responsible for the majority of regulation. These regulatory components work in concert to maintain the essential function of blood perfusion to adult tissues. Given the essential nature of this function it is therefore surprising that the development of cardiovascular regulation during gestation is poorly understood. The majority of what is known is based on a single vertebrate model, the fetal lamb. The fetal lamb has been used in multiple studies due to the clear clinical applications and has been pivotal in understanding the onset of regulation in developing vertebrates. However, study on the fetal lamb is limited to the latter 40% of gestation and has the added complication of an in-utero developmental strategy. Therefore the primary focus of this dissertation was to characterize basic cardiovascular regulation in the chicken embryo to provided the needed information for it's use an alternative to the fetal lamb. Developing chicken embryos rely on both alpha and beta adrenergic tones to maintain normal heart rate and arterial blood pressure during incubation. However, on day 21, just prior to hatch, these animals lose both tones on arterial pressure suggesting the onset of adult regulation. Cholinergic tone, however, was absent throughout chicken development indicating that it must mature during the neonatal life. Adult cardiovascular reflexes become apparent late in chicken development with a clear baroreflex specifically operating initially on day. However, an adult response to changes in ambient gas tension was absent during incubation suggesting embryos possess unique regulatory systems that are absent in adult chickens. This mechanism is comprised entirely of adrenergic systems with no cholinergic action during change in ambient gas tension. Similar developmental patterns were determined in embryos of the desert tortoise suggesting fundamental differences between in-utero and ex-utero developing vertebrates.

The Late Intermediate Period in northern Chile has been strongly influenced by the mobility models of vertical archipelago and the gyratory mobility. The vertical archipelago model proposes altiplano colonies would have lived in the lowlands controlling trade and distributing economic resources. The gyratory mobility suggests trade was rather controlled by pastoralist groups from the highlands, travelling across the Andes using llama caravans. Following new studies on stable isotope analysis for the LIP in the Atacama Desert, there is little evidence to support the colonies hypothesis. For this reason, the aim of this thesis is to evaluate the presence of colonies and specialised highland pastoralist groups in the lowlands of northern Chile through the use of d13C, d15N, d18O and 87Sr/86Sr as well as radiocarbon dating. Human remains were analysed for tooth enamel, bone collagen, bone apatite, and hair-keratin. A second aim of the thesis was to provide new analysis of archaeological plants and animals of the area. Plants results present incredibly high d15N values for the crops, suggesting use of fertilisers on them, probably seabird guano from the coast. This is also supported by the absence of a marine reservoir effect on the radiocarbon dates, reflected in the lack of offset between paired dates of bone collagen and textiles in individuals enriched in 15N. The results obtained for the human remains suggest there is no evidence to support neither the 'colony' hypothesis nor the gyratory mobility model. However, a small number of outlier individuals for d13C, d15N, d18O and 87Sr/86Sr suggest a non-local origin. Mobility patterns were diverse and flexible including female and male individuals that moved at different moments of their life (infancy and adulthood). This study shows that dietary patterns in the Atacama Desert during the LIP were associated with strong local traditions.

<p>Manöverkrigföring är ett vedertaget begrepp inom militär teori. Jag har i denna uppsats valt att analysera och jämföra två operationer som baseras på manöverkrigföring.</p><p>Vid Tysklands invasion av Frankrike 1940, Fall Gelb, utgjorde manöverteorin grunden för operationen. Detta var första gången som manöverkrigföring utnyttjades i stor skala för att slå en jämbördig motståndare.</p><p> I den USA-ledda FN-koalitionens invasion av Irak 1991, Desert Storm, var manöverkrigföring ännu en gång den operativa huvudteorin i planerna för operationen.</p><p>Den här uppsatsen är en komparativ fallstudie baserad på kvalitativ textanalys. Båda operationerna beskrivs för att sedan jämföras varvid skillnader och likheter belyses.</p><p>Resultatet visar att såväl Fall Gelb som Desert Storm genomfördes som operationer baserade på teorin om manöverkrigföring, men att stora skillnader finns mellan dessa operationer. Orsaken till skillnaderna belyses till del och vissa teorier om vad dessa beror på presenteras.</p> / <p>Maneuver warfare is a widely accepted term used in military theory. I have in this essay chosen to analyse and compare two operations that were based on maneuver warfare.</p><p>In Germany’s invasion of France in 1940, Fall Gelb, maneuver theory was used as a base for the operation. It was the first time maneuver warfare was used in large scale to defeat an equal opponent.</p><p>In the US led UN-coalitions invasion of Iraq in 1991, Desert Storm, maneuver warfare was once again the cornerstone in the planning of the operation.</p><p> This essay is a comparative study based on qualitative text-analysis. Both operations are first described and then compared to one and other, and differences and similarities are shown.</p><p>The results show that both Fall Gelb and Desert Storm were fought based on the theory of maneuver warfare, but that large differences exist between the two operations. The reasons for these differences are not shown in detail, but some theories are presented.</p>

Manöverkrigföring är ett vedertaget begrepp inom militär teori. Jag har i denna uppsats valt att analysera och jämföra två operationer som baseras på manöverkrigföring. Vid Tysklands invasion av Frankrike 1940, Fall Gelb, utgjorde manöverteorin grunden för operationen. Detta var första gången som manöverkrigföring utnyttjades i stor skala för att slå en jämbördig motståndare.  I den USA-ledda FN-koalitionens invasion av Irak 1991, Desert Storm, var manöverkrigföring ännu en gång den operativa huvudteorin i planerna för operationen. Den här uppsatsen är en komparativ fallstudie baserad på kvalitativ textanalys. Båda operationerna beskrivs för att sedan jämföras varvid skillnader och likheter belyses. Resultatet visar att såväl Fall Gelb som Desert Storm genomfördes som operationer baserade på teorin om manöverkrigföring, men att stora skillnader finns mellan dessa operationer. Orsaken till skillnaderna belyses till del och vissa teorier om vad dessa beror på presenteras. / Maneuver warfare is a widely accepted term used in military theory. I have in this essay chosen to analyse and compare two operations that were based on maneuver warfare. In Germany’s invasion of France in 1940, Fall Gelb, maneuver theory was used as a base for the operation. It was the first time maneuver warfare was used in large scale to defeat an equal opponent. In the US led UN-coalitions invasion of Iraq in 1991, Desert Storm, maneuver warfare was once again the cornerstone in the planning of the operation.  This essay is a comparative study based on qualitative text-analysis. Both operations are first described and then compared to one and other, and differences and similarities are shown. The results show that both Fall Gelb and Desert Storm were fought based on the theory of maneuver warfare, but that large differences exist between the two operations. The reasons for these differences are not shown in detail, but some theories are presented.

No description available.