In 2014, 547 new breweries opened in the United States and more than 2 million barrels of beer were produced by American homebrewers. Craft brewery owners face challenges in increasing profit because of intense competition from existing breweries, new ventures, and homebrewers. The purpose of the study was to explore the strategies that craft brewery owners used to increase profits by collaboratively working with internal and external stakeholders, such as employees, distributors, customers, suppliers, lending groups, and community organizations. The conceptual framework of this multiple-case study was the stakeholder theory. The basic tenet of the stakeholder theory is that a business owner can maximize the firm's financial performance if the business owner proactively meets the needs of the relevant stakeholders. Face-to-face interviews were conducted on a purposeful sample of 5 craft brewery owners who met the study criteria of operating a profitable brewery in southern Maine for a minimum of 5 years. Transcripts, direct observations, and industry documents were organized to create common themes for coding in accordance with Yin's method of data analysis. Through methodological triangulation, the following 4 themes emerged: employee satisfaction and retention, nontraditional marketing, commitment to quality, and development of local relationships. Within these themes, craft brewery owners can apply a number of strategies to increase profits through stakeholder collaboration. The implications for social change include partnering of breweries with local establishments, which can foster increased sales for both businesses and provide better jobs for the local community.

As humans, we live in a state of dynamic, conflicting emotions. In moments of pain we experience joy and in moments of joy we have sorrow. In the work that culminates in my thesis show Lovely…, I visually celebrate the contradictions and dynamism of the joy and sadness of life. Just like the word “lovely,” which we may use to describe everything from a wedding ceremony to a funeral service, life is an indefinable experience. It fluctuates, never remaining in one moment or emotion for long. This dynamism creates the complexity of life, the beauty of life, and the path of life. As Joanna Freuh says, “life is sloppy” and, as an artist, I want to celebrate, question, and reveal the sloppiness of our lives. I use my daily life as the main subject of my work to make it honest and accessible. The idea of the work being honest, even painfully so, comes from my desire to be true to my emotions, insecurities, strengths, and intelligence without fear of ridicule or censure from a patriarchal society. By making work that resides within the realm of the everyday, I am attempting to defy and contest masculine censure. In effect, I reclaim my femininity: the quality of being feminine, without the fear of losing strength or respect. Though the autobiographical drives the work and is necessary for it to exist, ultimately it is transcended, enabling the viewer to have his or her own independent relationship to it.

The diploma thesis consists of a textile image (200x160cm) and an object (80x20cm) created by the author's method of melting and sintering a polyester fabric. In the digital version of the presentation, it gives the possibility of a detailed display and thus lets the viewer's view penetrate into the very structure of the work.

High-speed planing craft operating in waves are subject to frequent water impact, or slamming, as a portion or whole of the craft exits the water and re-enters at high velocity. The global load induced by slamming can cause fatigue-related damages to structures. The local slamming can cause local damage to structures and its induced acceleration can cause damage to equipment and personnel aboard. Therefore the slamming loads in high-speed craft are critical design loads. Nowadays, due to the increasing use of composite materials in high-speed craft, the interaction between the hydrodynamic loading and structural response, or hydroelasticity, must be considered. In this work, a flexible V-shaped wedge, which vertically enters the calm water with an impact velocity, was examined experimentally and numerically to characterize the slamming of a representative cross-section of high-speed craft. Physical quantities of interest include rigid-body kinematic motions, spray root propagation, hydrodynamic loading, and structural response. In the experimental work, with varied impact velocity and flexural rigidity of the wedge bottom plate, a wide range of hydroelasticity factors were investigated. The intersection between the bottom plate and side plate is called chine. The phases before and after the spray root reached the chine are called chine-unwetted and chine-wetted phase, respectively. It was found that the maximum deflection and strain occur in the chine-unwetted phase while a structural vibration with rapidly decaying magnitude is observed in the chine-wetted phase. Furthermore, the kinematic effect of hydroelasticity changes the spray root propagation and hence the pressure, while the inertial effect elongates the natural period of the plate. Inspired by the experimental work, a computational framework was proposed to focus on the chine-unwetted phase. Several hydroelastic models can be obtained from this framework. The hydroelastic models were validated to show reasonable agreement with experiments. Various parameters were studied through the computational framework. The hydroelasticity factor was modified to account for the mass and boundary conditions. It was found that the nondimensional rigid-body kinematic motions and maximum deflection showed little dependence on the hydroelasticity factor. Hydroelastic effects increased the time it takes for the peak maximum deflection to be reached for small values of the hydroelasticity factor. Hydroelastic effects also have little influence on the magnitude of the maximum deflection. These discoveries further the understanding of hydroelastic slamming and show the potential to guide the structural optimization and design of high-speed craft. / Doctor of Philosophy / High-speed planing craft operating in waves are prone to frequent water impact, or slamming, as a portion or whole of the craft exits the water and re-enters at high velocity. The slamming loads in high-speed craft are critical design loads as the slamming can cause damage to the structures and equipment as well as injure personnel aboard. Nowadays, due to the increasing use of composite materials in high-speed craft, the interaction between the hydrodynamic loading and structural response, or hydroelasticity, must be considered. In this work, a flexible V-shaped wedge entering water is studied experimentally and computationally to characterize the slamming of a representative cross-section of high-speed craft. The contact point between the water surface and the wedge bottom is called the spray root. It was found that the hydrodynamic loading and structural response interact with each other through the spray root. The maximum deflection and strain occur when the wedge bottom is partially submerged while a structural vibration with rapidly decaying magnitude is observed when the wedge bottom is fully submerged. Using the hydroelasticity factor proposed by other researchers, the extent of fluid-structure interaction was quantified. Hydroelastic effects manifest themselves when the hydroelasticity factor is small These discoveries further the understanding of hydroelastic slamming and show the potential to guide the structural optimization and design of high-speed craft.

Cloud Nine by Carol Churchill is a good example of non-linear play structure. Episodic plays are part of an even more disjointed time structure. There are both many different locations and characters in an episodic play; it is similar to a film script for that matter. Onstage, this was a revolution; how can a person be in one city and then the next shortly after? This was the rule of continuity that episodic structure broke. Bertolt Brecht did this throughout his movement in epic theatre, and traces of this structure can also be found as early back as Medieval plays. Therein lays the problem. If there are so many different way to write a play, how is it possible to just pick one? How does one even decide? There are many texts on playwriting that all say something different. In the end, the way you format a play script is decided by the structure in which you are writing your script, whether it be linear, non-linear, and episodic structures. This is an exploration to research possible methods of playwriting in the English language, choose a format, and create a story, ultimately forming a universally acceptable play script for a one-act production. Through my process, I researched various elements about play structure. I researched various types of formatting options found throughout texts, and the formatting options found in different publications of plays. I also researched the options of different software programs I could use to format my play. In regards to the show's content itself, I researched the personality disorders of my main character, John, in order to ensure I am staying accurate to the realistic expectations of the disorder. The possible disorders that might influence John included Bi-Polar disorder, Autism, Alzheimer's, or Narcissistic Personality Disorder. These disorders fit the characteristics of John and further research led me to finally adopt Autism as the end result.; David Ball's Backwards and Forwards: A Technical Manual for Reading Plays, Rosemary Ingham's From Page to Stage: How Theatre Designers Make Connections Between Scripts and Images, and Cal Printer and Scott E. Walter's Introduction to Play Analysis aided in ensuring the translation from the script to the stage works together fluidly. By understanding how the play will be analyzed, the potential flaws with the work can be identified before it is put in front of an audience, publisher, or director. A writer needs to know why they made certain choices with both script and character. When a writer can analyze how their script can be perceived, they can create a more solid structure. It also is useful to utilize available play scripts in order to understand the conventions through example. Works that were useful included: Proof by David Auburn, The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, Equus by Peter Shaffer, The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov, The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler, Doubt by John Patrick Shanley, and Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. The Vagina Monologues follows the format of episodic structure because of its inconsistencies to time and the multiple characters included in its script. Equus, Proof, and Death of a Salesman are examples of non-linear play structure because of the non-specific timeline the characters follow between past and present. The Glass Menagerie, The Cherry Orchard, and Doubt are all examples of linear structure because a majority of their play's content was written within a specified chronological order.; I researched the historical significance of the car, an all-original, 1969 Stingray Corvette Convertible, in order to allow my characters to speak accurately about their knowledge of the car. I also researched how previous playwrights have accomplished their transitions between the world of the play and a character's alternate reality. This was done in order to provide both a believable and a sly transition so the audience is left unaware until the reveal. In the final stages of this process, I polished the script for inclusion in the Theatre UCF Spring 2012 One-Act Festival (OAF). As stated above, the process of writing a play can be taken down many different avenues; however, the format of a play script is something that remains constant throughout. Knowing the history from where plays derive and which movements created such is just as essential. W. B. Worthen's The Wadsworth Anthology of Drama and Living Theatre by Edwin Wilson and Alvin Goldfarb provide an adequate brevity into the history of theatre. The books Playwriting: Brief and Brilliant by Julie Jensen, Playwriting: A practical guide by Noel Greig, The Art and Craft of Playwriting by Jeffrey Hatcher, and The Elements of Playwriting by Louis E. Catron all provide an introduction to the structured format of the play. These books also contain sections on theory explaining how to create a storyline for a play, how to accomplish believable dialogue, and how to defeat writer's block. Jensen, Catron, and Hatcher all go one step further and take their readers through the processes of publications, copyrights, and productions. Those sources help create the play, but during the editing phase, it is wise to acknowledge how others may study and analyze the work.; Through exploration and research, I plan on combining my two degree tracks, Theatre Studies and Creative Writing, in order to create an original one-act play for production, utilizing the techniques of both fields. My education has been lagging in playwriting, specifically. Neither Creative Writing nor Theatre Studies have any courses geared towards playwriting. Students appear to be taught everything but this aspect. I will, therefore, complete in-depth research in playwriting techniques through literature studies and one-on-one consultations with my professors in both departments. There are many different types of writing structures and play movements. Play scripts can be written in linear, non-linear, and episodic structures. Each structure is measured by the action of a script. The action of a script is developed with each action a character completes that moves the script further along towards a conclusion. Linear structuring of a play is when a majority or all the action of a play occurs in a chronological order. The play, therefore, always will be moving forward in time without any disruptions of said timeline. In a linear play, it does not necessarily mean all the action occurs in this chronological sequence. Comparable to Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, the entire recollection of Tom Wingfield's story is told chronologically in linear structure, despite the fact that this story is from Tom's memory, about an event he is no longer part of at that time. Non-linear structure occurs when the chronological timeline of a play is broken. The play's action constantly moves backwards and forwards through time. This type of play is based on the ideology of the human thought process. As humans, we may not remember the exact order of how things are remembered; these images and events are distorted somehow by our subconscious in order to remember. Thus, a non-linear play erupts based on the infrequencies of a timeline.

Yaw response of landing craft transiting the surf zone is a significant concern for U.S. military forces engaged in amphibious landing operations. However, this subject is not well understood and few investigations have been dedicated to its study. The present investigation used laboratory conditions to investigate and determine variables important to the yaw response of shallow-hulled landing craft. Using a sloped wave basin outfitted with wave gauges and a motion capture system, a unique dataset was obtained regarding the six degree of freedom motion of the landing craft model under a variety of wave conditions. The dataset was analyzed with both linear and nonlinear data analysis techniques. The results of these analyses illustrated variables significantly impacting shallow-hulled landing craft yaw response and were used to develop a statistical representation of landing craft utility (LCU) yaw response.

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