"A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Georgia Southern University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Fine Art." Title from PDF of title page (Georgia Southern University, viewed on February 10, 2010). Marc Moulton, committee chair; Bruce Little, Julie McGuire, Gary Dartt, committee members. Electronic version approved: December 2009. Includes bibliographical references (p. 119-121).

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Kent State University, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Jan. 22, 2010). Advisor: Darice Polo. Keywords: Installation; assemblage; mixed-media; drawing; playful arrangements; doodling; envrionmental art; intuitive process; mixed-media drawings; environmental concerns; ecological concerns; fragile environment; site-specific; craft-based methods; post-consumer. Includes bibliographical references (p. 28).

Studies of larger symbiont-bearing foraminifers on reefs have revealed their potential as indicators of environmental stress because of their physiological analogies to corals (dependence on algal symbionts for growth and calcification) and relatively short life cycle (a few months to 2 years or more). The purpose of this study is to report distribution patterns and population densities of larger benthic foraminifers (LBF) of the Florida reef tract, specifically reporting abundance data collected from offshore (1995-2000, 2006, 2007) and patch reefs (1996, 2006, 2007). Six years of quarterly data collected from two offshore reefs, Conch (10, 18 and 30m) and Tennessee (8 and 20m), revealed that LBF assemblages primarily varied with habitat depth, in turn reflecting available light and water motion.These assemblages were dominated by Amphistegina gibbosa d'Orbigny and Laevipeneroplis proteus d'Orbigny, which tended to occur together, making up ~40-50% of the assemblages and up to 80% at the Tennessee 20m site. Both overall abundance and evenness of the LBF assemblage structure exhibited the greatest variability at shallower depths. Evenness was inversely related to densities of A. gibbosa, which were typically higher at depth keeping evenness below 0.5. Across the Keys, region (location along the reef tract), reef type (offshore shallow, deep or patch reefs) and symbiont type strongly influenced LBF assemblage dynamics. Upper Keys sites shared the highest degree of inter-region similarity among assemblages (73%), while Biscayne National Park (BNP) and lower Keys sites had the lowest similarity (~60%). This likely reflects the greater variability of habitats found in the latter areas, mainly patch reefs.Chlorophyte-bearers were typically more abundant in shallower turbid waters, with diatom-bearers more abundant at depth. Additionally, I observed a significant two-fold decrease in the proportion of chlorophyte-bearers in the middle Keys likely due to light-limitation by turbid Florida Bay outflow. Finally, data comparisons revealed an inverse relationship between LBF abundances and percent coral cover. Coral cover (2005) was staggeringly low on offshore reefs (5%), but was significantly higher on nearshore patch reefs (12%). Contrastingly, LBF species showed either no difference in abundance between reef types or a greater abundance on offshore reefs.

This work traces the relationship of individual persons to national economic phenomena associated with consumer finance. The work follows the assemblage of individual consumer credit/debt agents through credit reporting and credit scoring, through to the aggregation of these agents in student loan-backed securitization and credit ratings. The work focuses on the unique technico-cultural constructions produced when human subjects are operatively conjoined to other related discursive and material objects, including related legislation, private corporations, and governmental bodies. The work explores how these unique constructions form stable networks connecting individuals to larger socio-economic settings: networks at once revealing the profoundly distributed nature of both ‘agents’ and their ‘agency,’ and at the same time intimating alternative approaches to questions of individual and collective agency outside the agent/structure dichotomy. The work concludes by addressing the place of this research in consumer finance generally, and the role of consumer finance in contemporary US economics broadly.

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Sexual representations in Seba al-Herz’s Saudi Arabian novel The Others span various kinds of sexual identification and experience. Surface level readings of the novel find examples of lesbian identities and encounters, but a deeper, more nuanced examination of the novel unearths a complex set of queer desires, practices, sexual encounters, and relationships that do not fit neatly in to regulated sexual identity categories. Through literary analysis, I argue that through ambiguities in the novel’s construction and narration, and through the Narrator’s sexual experiences, The Others offers a kind of sexual expression that opens up possibilities of de-territorializing and re-territorializing sexual experience beyond static identity labels.

International sporting events such as the Olympics and FIFA World Cup can affect entire economies, democratic regimes, juridical structures, urban architectures, organizational capacities, and political communities. Whether positively or negatively, undertaking a major sporting event such as the Olympics or FIFA World Cup represents a distinct opportunity for the host-city to embark on the largest ever domestic logistical project ever undertaken within the countries’ borders, which can lead to considerable degrees of short-, medium-, and long-term impacts on a vast array of groups and organizations spanning the public-private divide. Accordingly, the International Olympic Committee has seized on the discourse of legacy to promote and expand the social and political value of infrastructural projects associated with the Games. Over the same period that legacy became a mainstream discourse in the Olympic industry; investment in security, surveillance, and policing infrastructure to protect major sports events simultaneously grew to approximately 20-50% of all expenditures associated with the hosting of an Olympic event. As the discourse of legacy gained currency with Olympic developments, any discourse of security legacies has remained woefully disregarded. Early studies that acknowledge the prevalence of security legacies at major events have focused on event-to-event cases, or have otherwise listed security legacy variables in the absence of any theoretical framework that explains how security governance legacies emerge and endure after the major event has ended. This dissertation presents a robust theoretical framework to address the security governance legacies flowing from the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. Through empirical case-studies, it details how such investments in security, surveillance, and policing infrastructure often become institutionalized as security governance assemblages that persist after the major event has ended. In particular, the chapters address legacies of redeployable public video surveillance, public-order policing, civilian-military integration, and the legacies of the private security industry. The security governance legacies of the 2010 Games involves significant changes within security, intelligence, and policing assemblages in Vancouver, and Canada as a whole. The dissertation concludes with a discussion on how security governance assemblages from the Vancouver 2010 Olympics might further inform notions of function-creep in the surveillance studies literature. / Graduate / 0615 / 0627

The intention of this practicum is the exploration of my own articulating actions as performed within a landscape assemblage. The goal of this work is to act as a catalyst for the discuss surrounding the capacity for action within an existing landscape assemblage, the agency of territorial/ de-territorialization that may follow these actions and small techniques that may facilitate an individual’s design process within the discipline of landscape architecture. Questioning what might constitute a landscape assemblage while understanding that its identity relies upon the articulation of multiple agents that formalize its makeup, remains as a constant.

International sporting events such as the Olympics and FIFA World Cup can affect entire economies, democratic regimes, juridical structures, urban architectures, organizational capacities, and political communities. Whether positively or negatively, undertaking a major sporting event such as the Olympics or FIFA World Cup represents a distinct opportunity for the host-city to embark on the largest ever domestic logistical project ever undertaken within the countries’ borders, which can lead to considerable degrees of short-, medium-, and long-term impacts on a vast array of groups and organizations spanning the public-private divide. Accordingly, the International Olympic Committee has seized on the discourse of legacy to promote and expand the social and political value of infrastructural projects associated with the Games. Over the same period that legacy became a mainstream discourse in the Olympic industry; investment in security, surveillance, and policing infrastructure to protect major sports events simultaneously grew to approximately 20-50% of all expenditures associated with the hosting of an Olympic event. As the discourse of legacy gained currency with Olympic developments, any discourse of security legacies has remained woefully disregarded. Early studies that acknowledge the prevalence of security legacies at major events have focused on event-to-event cases, or have otherwise listed security legacy variables in the absence of any theoretical framework that explains how security governance legacies emerge and endure after the major event has ended. This dissertation presents a robust theoretical framework to address the security governance legacies flowing from the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. Through empirical case-studies, it details how such investments in security, surveillance, and policing infrastructure often become institutionalized as security governance assemblages that persist after the major event has ended. In particular, the chapters address legacies of redeployable public video surveillance, public-order policing, civilian-military integration, and the legacies of the private security industry. The security governance legacies of the 2010 Games involves significant changes within security, intelligence, and policing assemblages in Vancouver, and Canada as a whole. The dissertation concludes with a discussion on how security governance assemblages from the Vancouver 2010 Olympics might further inform notions of function-creep in the surveillance studies literature. / Graduate / 0615 / 0627

The Deadhorse Coulee Member of the Milk River Formation of southern Alberta preserves one of the oldest well-documented non-marine vertebrate assemblages in Canada. In this study, the taxonomic diversity of this member is updated, and vertebrate localities are placed in geographic and stratigraphic context. The stratigraphic provenance of specimens indicates all vertebrate material from this member is latest Santonian (83.5 Ma). A new species of turtle is described. Analyses of the rank and relative abundances of taxa support interpretations of this member as a prograding clastic wedge with localities approximately 40 km from the palaeoshoreline at time of deposition. Results support high local abundances of vertebrates in western North America, with faunal provincialism regulated by distance to the palaeoshoreline and mean annual temperatures. Morphologic changes in small theropod taxa through the latest Cretaceous of western North America act as a case study for evaluating species turnover of vertebrate microfossil material. / Systematics and Evolution