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The purpose of this study is to identify the currently supported diet and dietary niches of the Malagasy subfossil and extant lemurs. The study was conducted partially in Tsinjoarivo and Antananarivo, Madagascar in the summer of 2013. Samples were analyzed and microwear determined that the dietary niches were aligned with current literature. Grit accumulation occurs more frequently in disturbed habitats and on lower canopy levels, which suggests that human manipulation of environment can impact the dental microwear of living primates.

Variation in the shape and position of the internal nasal floor relative to the lower border of the piriform aperture in the genus Homo has been described as having three primary shape configurations: level, sloped, or depressed. The high frequency of depressed nasal floors among Neandertals relative to other fossil and extant groups (>80%) had originally led to the idea that nasal floor depression was related to an overall enlarged nasal capsule - an adaptive feature that would have been under selection among Neandertals living in cold, glacial climates. For a variety of reasons, subsequent research has found little empirical or theoretical support for this adaptive idea. Recent research on extant humans has also demonstrated that nasal floor shape variation, unlike many other midfacial traits, does not arise until well after birth, with nasal floor depression (when it occurs) appearing at the earliest around 3.0 years of age. Furthermore, nasal floor depression was also shown to correspond with a vertically expanded premaxillary region. Thus, it was hypothesized that nasal floor depression might be related to variation in key developmental and morphological aspects of the anterior maxillary dentition. This study metrically quantifies nasal floor topography for the first time in order to more objectively examine patterns of shape variation and to test explicit hypotheses regarding potential causative factors for nasal floor variation. The variables examined include anterior tooth dimensions, dental developmental rate, aspects of midfacial shape, overall facial size, and patterns of premaxillary/post-maxillary integration. It was found that among these, only dental developmental rate was clearly correlated with internal nasal floor shape. This result indicates that aspects of anterior dental development may indeed be a causative factor in the development of nasal floor shape variation. The existing visual discrete coding system for nasal floor topography was also evaluated in light of the new, quantitative data produced by this study as well as a critical comparison of the consistency of nasal floor topography definitions used previously in the literature. While it is suggested that quantitative data are preferable to qualitative data for this trait when possible, limitations in research methods for collecting quantitative data on osteological and fossil collections remain difficult to overcome. Thus a new, two-category presence/absence based system for describing nasal floor shape is proposed.

During the Late Quaternary, abrupt climate and cultural changes took place and made alternations to the past landscape. Climatic phenomena such as expand of ice masses,sea level rise, high and low temperatures, migration of humans, decline and increase of forest areas and more changes were the reason of changing the biodiversity of species and the formation of the land. Here cartographic maps with the use of GIS will be presented from reconstructions of the environment during the Late Quaternary, which then will be interpreted from coleopteran fossils for the whole of Europe. Furthermore, living and extinct species will be compared, in which the focus of the extinction will be in the British Isles. Each period will show a different abundance of species, the regional disappearance of the species will be depicted by the abrupt changes in the landscape during the past. Anthropogenic and natural factors will be discussed and be compared with the habitats of the species.

The occipital bun, a distinctive convexity of the occipital squama, is often considered to be a uniquely derived Neandertal trait. Some scholars, however, consider the occipital morphology found in some early modern and extant human crania (often described as “hemi-buns”) to be homologous with Neandertal occipital buns. A number of hypotheses have been proposed to explain occipital bun/hemi-bun development, including neck muscle function, head carriage, brain growth timing, and cranial base cartilage growth timing, as well as braincase and facial integration. The feature, however, has never before been metrically quantified in a large subadult sample or studied in a well-documented growth series. The primary goal of this dissertation, therefore, was to assess hemi-bun growth and development in a combined comparative sample of extant humans amassed from the following growth series: the University of Toronto Burlington Growth Study, the Iowa Facial Growth Study, the Oregon Growth Study, the University of Oklahoma Denver Growth Study, the Wright State University Fels Longitudinal Study, and the Michigan Growth Study. Cephalograms from these studies facilitated the collection of longitudinal cranial growth and development data. In total, measurements were collected from 468 cephalograms representing 16 males and 10 females. Measured subjects represented the ends of the range of variation in adult midsagittal occipital bone shape, including subjects with defined hemi-buns, as well as subjects lacking all evidence of hemi-bun morphology. Frontal and lateral cephalograms were measured for each subject at 9 age points, spanning from 3.0 to 20.4 years of age. A total of 16 landmarks and 153 sliding semi-landmarks were digitized at each age point. Geometric morphometric analyses, including relative warps analysis and two-block partial least squares analysis, were conducted to assess patterns of cranial covariation and sexual dimorphism in occipital bone growth and possible attendant variation in occipital bun development or absence. In both bunned and non-bunned subjects, midsagittal occipital shape was found to be established very early in ontogeny, and then to remain largely unchanged between 3 years of age and adulthood. This result contradicts previous developmental hypotheses, which posit that occipital bunning results from a pattern of late posteriorly-directed brain growth. No evidence of sexual dimorphism in hemi-bun shape was found to exist in this extant human sample; however, defined hemi-buns were found to covary significantly with an elongated and low midsagittal neurocranial vault in both sexes. Other aspects of cranial morphology, including cranial and basicranial breadth, midcoronal vault shape, and basicranial angle, did not covary significantly with occipital bun morphology at any of the sampled age points. These results reveal that occipital bunning, at least in this sample, is not a discrete trait, but instead develops along a continuum in association with a distinct pattern of neurocranial elongation. Previous studies have suggested that Neandertal occipital buns are similarly associated with elongated cranial vaults. While more work must be done to quantify occipital bun morphology in fossil subadults, this study finds no evidence to disprove the developmental homology of the feature in modern humans and Neandertals, and therefore further undermines the idea that occipital bunning is a unique Neandertal trait.

This is a theoretical/philosophical paper which is intended to bring to the reader's attention an emerging literature and discussion which holds potentially productive consequences for the understanding of man. This thesis does not offer completed formulations or empirical groundings. The purpose is to create a basis for dialogue. This paper will initially specify a current conflict in psychology around the different metaphors used to define the image of man. A theoretical/philosophical basis for viewing the process of generating models of man and his behavior as essentially "metaphorical" is then presented. A specific category of human behavior known as the neurotic paradox (henceforth abbreviated NP) is defined and a review of literature on the root metaphorical interpretations of the NP is discussed. The prominent extant models of human behavior reviewed in this discussion are those based on the metaphors Spirit, Disease, Machine, and Seed. The limitations of each model will be discussed with regard to that model's adequacy to provide understanding of the four basic defining characteristics of the NP. This section constitutes the main body of the thesis. This evaluative discussion of the theoretical/philosophical inadequacies of each model is intended to bring to light the process and strategies (both explicit and implicit) which have evolved in the interpretation of the image of man.

This thesis is an investigation of embracing the figural possibilities of palimpsest through layering new construction upon extant. The existing building, a neglected warehouse in Louisville, Kentucky, is challenged by a new program that is intended to subdivide the vast, horizontal space and reconstrue the two distinctly ordered systems to formulate new interdependent spatial relationships. Filtered critical moments and continuities are explored through the implication of collapse, the embrace of datum and ideatum, and the lateral play of scale and repetition. Through development of these new relationships, the building is intended to not be a product but a construct of process, allowing particular moments of composition to exist within a collage of space and time. / Master of Architecture

Die morphologische Variabilität dentaler Strukturen, bei Haien der Familie der Carcharhinidae, ist sowohl innerhalb als auch zwischen den Arten unzureichend erforscht. Ohne Kenntnis der artspezifischen Parameter ist eine genaue taxonomische Klassifizierung von fossilen Haien anhand der Zähne jedoch unmöglich. Die umfassende Analyse der dentalen Strukturen rezenter carcharhinider Haie nach artspezifischen Merkmalen wurde genutzt, um die Ergebnisse auf die nächsten fossilen Verwandten zu übertragen. Besonderes Augenmerk galt darüber hinaus dem morphologischen Vergleich fossiler Zähne westatlantischer und zentralasiatischer Herkunft. Es wurde ein morphometrisches Analyseverfahren entwickelt, dass entgegen bestehender Methoden, gänzlich auf manuelle Datengewinnung verzichtet. Für die neue Methode der automatisierten algorithmischen Morphometrie (AAM) wurden erstmals, anhand von 2340 Einzelzähnen von 112 Individuen aus 41 Arten rezenter Carcharhinidae, die wesentlichen artspezifischen Merkmalskomplexe definiert und in ein Analyseprogramm samt Datenbank übertragen. Die Einzeluntersuchung der einzelnen Spezies nach Gesichtspunkten ontogenetischer, sexueller bzw. mono-/dignather Heterodontie sowie intra- und interspezifischer Varianz der Zahnmorphologie zeigte, dass carcharhinide Haie allein mit Hilfe zahnmorphologischer Merkmale identifiziert werden können und diese Merkmale für systematische Zwecke geeignet sind. Der Erfolg der systematischen Zuordnung steht aber in direkter Abhängigkeit zur Zahnposition und zur betrachteten Spezies. Der Einfluss der Heterodontie auf die taxonomische Aussagekraft ist mitunter enorm, so dass die Eindeutigkeit der taxonomischen Klassifizierung stark begrenzt wird. Es existiert eine enorme Bandbreite an morphologischen Überschneidungen und Durchdringungen, sowohl innerhalb der Arten als auch art- bzw. gattungsübergreifend. Beim Vergleich allein anhand einzelner Zähne, sowohl fossiler als auch rezenter Herkunft, ist es in vielen Fällen nicht feststellbar, ob noch innerartliche Varianz oder bereits artliche Differenz vorliegt. Aus den Erkenntnissen der morphometrischen Analyse und deren Übertragung auf die fossilen Belege, ergab sich die Notwendigkeit, fossile Zähne carcharhinider Haie zukünftig, neben dem bestehenden deskriptiven Verfahren der Taxonomie, zusätzlich funktionsmorphologisch zu beurteilen. Dazu wurden erstmals sechs funktionsmorphologische Gruppen definiert, mit deren Hilfe vor allem ökologische Schlussfolgerungen bei der Bewertung fossiler Zähne möglich sind. / The morphological variability of dental structures within the different species as well as between the species of sharks belonging to the family of the Carcharhinidae is insufficient investigated. Without knowledge of the species specific parameter the precise taxonomic classification based on the teeth morphology of fossil sharks is kind of impossible. The comprehensive analysis of dental structures of extant carcharhinid sharks was used to transfer the results to their next extinct relatives. Special attention was focused on the comparison between fossil teeth of populations with westatlantic and centralasiatic origin. A morphometric analysis program was established, that is in contrast to traditional methods not based on manual data collection. With the new method of automatic algorithmic morphometry (AAM) the essential species specific attribut complexes were defined for the first time by using the morphological data of 2340 single tooth from 112 individuals from 41 species of extant carcharhinid sharks and transfered to an appropriate new analysis program including all datasets in one database. Individual studies for each single species in aspects like ontogenetic, sexual, mono- and dignatic heterodondity as well as intra- and interspecific variance in tooth morphology proved the possibility to identify carcharhinid sharks just by their teeth and that these attributes can be used for systematic purposes. The effectiveness of the systematic classification stands in direct dependence to tooth position and investigated species. The heterodondity influence for the taxonomic significance is quite high and limiting the taxonomic classification. An enormous bandwith in morphological overlapping and interpenetration is existing as well as within the species but also between species respectively across genus. The comparison based on single teeth with both fossil and extant origin, makes it in many cases impossible to differentiate between intraspecific variance and already existing specific difference. From the new insight to morphological differentiation based on the morphometric analysis (AAM) established in this work and the tranfer from this informations to fossil samples the need for different view to fossil teeth of carcharhinid sharks was obvious. Beside the traditional descriptive procedure of taxonomy a method based on functional morphology is need to better reassess fossil carcharhinid shark teeth. Therefor six functional morphological groups where defined for the first time especially for paleoecological conclusions in the assessment of fossil teeth.

<p>Utilizing autoethnography and thematic analysis, this thesis explores reflexivity and social work praxis. Specifically, it illuminates the phenomenon of reflexivity and its related themes; reflexivity’s multiple meanings, challenges and enabling factors, its link to internal processes, rationale for usage and timeliness of inquiry. The multiple ways that practitioners engage in reflexive inquiry was revealed through dyadic interviews. However, current literature does not reflect this and the breadth and scope of reflexive inquiry is lost within contemporary social work discourse. Therefore, this thesis puts forth multiple definitions of reflexivity, which broaden the scope of reflexive inquiry, contextualize its usage and highlight its indications. The first group of definitions, efficacious, exigent and entrenched reflexivity are defined in terms of four key components; the reflexivity’s focus and center, what the reflexivity seeks and the degree to which reflexivity is utilized as a tool of practice. These definitions shed light on the varying depths of reflexive inquiry. The next group of definitions, extant and revenant reflexivity can serve to highlight to the worker when an experience needs to be reflected upon. The final group of definitions, polycentric and monocentric reflexivity, identify the context in which reflexivity takes place, namely communally or in isolation. The impetus for disseminating these broadened definitions is my belief that their incorporation into contemporary social work discourse and utilization as a required tool of practice will further promote the integration and support of the dual existences of the professional and personal selves; that their procurement into practitioner pedagogy will lead to dedicated space within the practice setting that enables one to be an emotional being, complete with emotional realities while simultaneously coexisting as a social worker, complete with social work related realities. I believe this will result in increased efficiency and productivity to serve and care for our clients, as well as increased worker health and well-being, to serve and care for ourselves.</p> / Master of Social Work (MSW)