This thesis examines the embodiment and disembodiment of Middle Eastern women in Suheir Hammad’s Breaking Poems (2008) and Solmaz Sharif’s Look (2016) to better understand how war, diasporicity, violence, and intimacy affect the socio-political subjection of Middle Eastern women in the United States. Through analyzing poetry, this thesis posits that Middle Eastern women’s subjection to racism and sexism as diasporic subjects in the United States leads to their disembodiment, resulting in feelings of displacement, loss, and uncertainty regarding their identities, which parallels the disembodiment they experience in the Middle East as a result of war. The Introduction Chapter answers why this thesis focuses on diasporic Middle Eastern women and the poetry of Suheir Hammad and Solmaz Sharif. Chapter One provides a theoretical framework of the major themes discussed throughout the thesis, such as embodiment, disembodiment, precarity, and double consciousness. Chapter Two discusses Suheir Hammad’s Breaking Poems with an emphasis on a hyper-individualized account of disembodiment. Chapter Three addresses Solmaz Sharif’s Look, focusing on poetry’s movement between different geographical spaces and time frames to present a wide range of disembodiment(s) experienced by not only Solmaz Sharif, but also by other Middle Eastern subjects. The Conclusion Chapter demonstrates that the theme of embodiment and disembodiment supports Hammad and Sharif’s efforts to give voice to the silenced experiences of diasporic Middle Eastern women. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

Yes / In this study, a new three-dimensional (3-D) model was developed to provide better understanding of the mechanism for wave-induced seabed response around mono-pile. Based on poro-elastic theory, the fully dynamic (FD) formulations were adopted in the present model to simulate pore water pressure, soil stresses, displacements of both soil and mono-pile. Good agreement between numerical simulation and experimental results was obtained. Based on parametric study, numerical results indicated: (1) wave diffraction and reflection have significant effects on pore water pressure and soil displacements around mono-pile; (2) the most sensitive position for seabed parameter to pore water pressure around mono-pile locates in front of mono-pile while the least sensitive position is at the position of angle 3π/4 with respect to the incident wave direction; and (3) the increase of mono-pile horizontal displacement corresponds to the increase of wave height and the decrease of seabed Young's modulus. / National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (51425901), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51209082, 51379071, 41176073), the Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (20120094120006, 20130094110014), the 111 project (B12032), the 333 project of Jiangsu Province (2013Ⅲ-1882)

Yes / Based on the Lagrangian approach, this study proposes a random displacement model (RDM) to predict the concentration of suspended sediment in vegetated steady open channel flow. Validation of the method was conducted by comparing the simulated results by using the RDM with available experimental measurements for uniform open-channel flows. The method is further validated with the classical Rouse formula. To simulate the important vertical dispersion caused by vegetation in the sediment-laden open channel flow, a new integrated sediment diffusion coefficient is introduced in this study, which is equal to a coefficient multiplying the turbulent diffusion coefficient. As such, the RDM approach for sandy flow with vegetation was established for predicting the suspended sediment concentration in low-sediment-concentration flow with both the emergent and submerged vegetation. The study shows that the value of for submerged vegetation flow is larger than that for emergent vegetation flow. The simulated result using the RDM is in good agreement with the available experimental data, indicating that the proposed sediment diffusion coefficient model can be accurately used to investigate the sediment concentration in vegetated steady open channel flow. / National Natural Science Foundation (No. 51439007, 11672213, and 11872285); Open Funding of State Key Laboratory of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering Science (WRHES), Wuhan University (Project No: 2018HLG01)

Yes / The aquatic vegetation patch plays a significant role on sediment net deposition in the vegetated channels. Particularly, the flow is decelerated at the leading edge of a patch that tends to induce vertical updraft, that is, a diverging flow region, in which vegetation greatly affects the pattern of sediment net deposition. This study focuses on the simulation of the sediment net deposition in the whole vegetation patch region through an innovative random displacement model, a Lagrange method, with probability-based boundary conditions, instead of the reflection or sorption boundary at the channel bottom. The probability model of deposition and resuspension is proposed according to the flow field characteristics in the different regions of the vegetation patch. The variation of the sediment deposition and resuspension with the turbulent kinetic energy is analyzed to illustrate the effect of the turbulence induced by vegetation, represented by the dimensionless turbulent kinetic energy (ψ), on the sediment deposition and resuspension. The sediment deposition predicted by the proposed model agrees well with the experimental measurements. Results show that the effect of vegetation on the sediment deposition and resuspension motions begins to prevail when the vegetation-induced ψ is larger than its threshold, ψ *. The threshold of ψ is predicted to be within 6.8–10 according to the simulation results in this study. As the turbulent kinetic energy increases, the deposition probability decreases continuously when ψ > ψ *. / ational Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). Grant Numbers: 52020105006, 11872285; UK Royal Society - International Exchanges Program. Grant Number: IES\R2\181122; Open Funding of State Key Laboratory of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering Science (WRHES), Wuhan University. Grant Number: 2018HLG01

This project is aiming to experience the process of following a designed research plan to formulate a narrative and an artwork, to evaluate the necessity of a rational research in an artistic project.  The subject of the artwork is displacement – the displacement of identity and the displacement of craft heritage. As a Chinese living in Sweden for around ten years, displacement is a longstanding theme in my art and a lens that I subconsciously observe the world through. Therefore, I interpret the issue of craft heritage in the contemporary society as displacement. Against the backdrop of globalization and consumer culture, almost all craft heritage are experiencing a displacement from its original cultural and societal context, having been marginalized and lost the connection to people’s daily life. This project used wax batik as a paradigm to discuss the potential development opportunity for craft heritage. Inspired by Deleuze’s becoming and rhizome theory, the theoretical research and studio experimentations formed a broad theoretical and practice base that paved the way for the formulation of the narrative and the final artwork. The implementation of this project proved that a rational research could play a significant role in terms of facilitating the agencies and actions that are leading to the final artwork. Additionally, an adequate research enables the work to be articulated and discussed in language. Becoming is the key word of the output of the project. Instead of being considered as fading from the contemporary society, displaced craft heritage has the potential to adapt to the new context and become something new; every one of us has the possibility to propose a brighter future for craft heritage. Displacement is a prerequisite for the becoming.

The advantages of Integral Abutment Bridges (IABs) include reduced maintenance costs and increased useful life spans. However, comprehensive and practical analysis tools for design of IABs have not been developed to account for the impacts of thermal displacements on abutment and foundation components, including the components of mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) walls that are often used around the abutment piling. During this research, over 65 three-dimensional numerical analyses were performed to investigate and quantify how different structural and geotechnical bridge components behave during thermal expansion and contraction of the bridge deck. In addition, separate three-dimensional numerical models were developed to evaluate the usefulness of corrugated steel pipes around the abutment piles. The results of this research quantify the influence of design parameter variations on the effects of thermal displacement on system components, and thus provide guidelines for IAB design, where none had existed before. One of the findings is that corrugated steel pipes around abutment piles are not necessary. One of the most important products of this research is an easy-to-use Excel spreadsheet, named IAB v2, that not only quantifies the impact of thermal displacement in the longitudinal direction, but also in the transverse direction when the abutment wall is at a skew angle to the bridge alignment. The spreadsheet accommodates seven different pile sizes, which can be oriented in weak or strong directions, with variable offset of the abutment from the MSE wall and for variable skew angles. The spreadsheet calculates the increment of displacements, forces, moments, and pressures on systems components due to thermal displacement of IABs. / Ph. D.

The main goal of this work is to determine values of elastic constants of orthotropic, transversely isotropic and cubic materials through indentation tests on thin layers bonded to rigid substrates. Accordingly, we first use the Stroh formalism to provide an analytical solution for generalized plane strain deformations of a linear elastic anisotropic layer bonded to a rigid substrate, and indented by a rigid cylindrical indenter. The mixed boundary-value problem is challenging since the deformed indented surface of the layer contacting the rigid cylinder is unknown a priori, and is to be determined as a part of the solution of the problem. For a rigid parabolic prismatic indenter contacting either an isotropic layer or an orthotropic layer, the computed solution is found to compare well with solutions available in the literature. Parametric studies have been conducted to delimit the length and the thickness of the layer for which the derived relation between the axial load and the indentation depth is valid. We then derive an expression relating the axial load, the indentation depth, and the elastic constants of an orthotropic material. This relation is specialized to a cubic material (e.g., an FCC single crystal). By using results of three virtual (i.e., numerical) indentation tests on the same specimen oriented differently, we compute values of the elastic moduli, and show that they agree well with their expected values. The technique can be extended to other anisotropic materials. We review the literature on relations between deformations at the atomic level and stresses and strains defined at the continuum level. These are then used to compare stress and strain distributions in mechanical tests performed on atomic systems and their equivalent continuum structures. Whereas averaged stresses and strains defined in terms of the overall deformations of the atomic system match well with those derived from the continuum description of the body, their local spatial distributions differ. / Ph. D.

Protection from the potentially damaging effects of shock loading is a common design requirement for diverse mechanical structures ranging from shock accelerometers to spacecraft. High-damping viscoelastic materials are employed in the design of geometrically complex impact absorbent components. Since shock transients have a broadband frequency spectrum, it is imperative to properly model frequency dependence of material parameters. The Anelastic Displacement Fields (ADF) method is employed to develop new axisymmetric and plane stress finite elements that are capable of modeling frequency dependent material behavior of linear viscoelastic materials. The new finite elements are used to model and analyze behavior of viscoelastic structures subjected to shock loads. The development of such ADF-based finite element models offers an attractive analytical tool to aid in the design of shock absorbent mechanical filters. This work will also show that it is possible to determine material properties’ frequency dependence by iteratively fitting ADF model predictions to experimental results. A series of experiments designed to validate the axisymmetric and plane stress finite element models are performed. These experiments involve the propagation of longitudinal waves through elastic and viscoelastic rods, and behavior of elastomeric mechanical filters subjected to shock. Comparison of model predictions to theory and experiments confirm that ADF-based finite element models are capable of capturing phenomena such as geometric dispersion and viscoelastic attenuation of longitudinal waves in rods as well as modeling the behavior of mechanical filters subjected to shock. / Ph. D.

No / Germany in 1945 was crammed with millions of people displaced by war, deportation, Nazi slave labour, and flight before the advance of the Red Army. Many of them, including Poles and the Baltic peoples of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, refused to return to their communist-controlled homelands. Simultaneously in Italy, the Middle East and Britain, there were more than 100,000 Polish military personnel under British command, along with their dependants. Most of these were survivors of the one and a half million Poles deported to Siberia by the Soviet security police. Based on official documents and the words of the survivors and their children, this book describes the brutal uprooting of these people, their subsequent terrible experiences in the Soviet and Nazi forced labour camps and prisons, and their ultimate settlement in Britain. Here the newcomers created communities, integrated into British life while attempting to preserve their cultures and identities, and experienced how ethnic minorities relate to the host society. 'This book is a fascinating history of the Polish and Baltic communities who arrived in the United Kingdom shortly after the Second World War. The author relies on interviews with elderly members of these communities and on documents from the Public Record Office. It was perhaps the last opportunity to obtain these important oral histories and Lane is the first British researcher to do so.' - International Affairs 'Its originality lies in the author's ability to weave personal stories into the otherwise dry facts concerning population movements. In this respect, the book becomes an inspiring social history.'

It is demonstrated that the method for locating a velocity profile origin, or plane of zero velocity, by fitting log profiles to streamwise velocity measurements is applicable to a larger range of roughness scales than previously expected. Five different sets of detailed, experimental velocity measurements were analyzed encompassing sediment-scale roughness elements, roughness caused by rigid vegetation, and large-scale roughness elements comprised of mobile bedforms. The method resulted in similar values of normalized zero-plane displacement for all roughness types considered. The ratios of zero-plane displacement, dh, to roughness height, ks, were 0.20 and 0.26 for the sediment- and vegetation-scale experiments, respectively. The results for the two experiments with bedform dominated roughness were 0.34 and 0.41. An estimate of dh/ks ranging from 0.2 to 0.4 is therefore recommended for a range of roughness types with the higher end of the range being more appropriate for the larger, bedform-scale roughness elements, and the lower end for the sediment-scale roughness elements. In addition, it is demonstrated that the location of the plane of zero velocity is temporally constant even when the bed height is not. The effects of roughness element packing density were also examined with the identification of a possible threshold at 4%, above which zero-plane displacement is independent of packing density. The findings can be applied to field velocity measurements under mobile bed conditions, facilitating the calculation of turbulence parameters such as shear velocity, by using point measurements and providing guidelines for the estimation of an appropriate value for zero-plane displacement. / Master of Science