Studien syftar till att skapa en bild av och bidra med kunskap om hur överlämningar kan se ut för elever med problematisk skolfrånvaro från årskurs 9 till gymnasiet i två sydsvenska kommuner. Studien ämnar även belysa huruvida sakägande yrkesprofession i respektive skolstadium uppfattar övergångsprocessen som hindrande och/eller främjande. Studiens frågeställningar är; • Hur beskriver berörd skolpersonal att överlämningarna mellan grundskolan och gymnasiet för elever med problematisk skolfrånvaro går till? • Vad anser personalen vara hindrande respektive främjande i denna övergångsprocess? I studien behandlas frågeställningarna utifrån Bronfenbrenners utvecklingsekologiska systemteori, samt push-, pull- och fall out processer som riskfaktorer för elever i problematik skolfrånvaro. Genom Bronfenbrenners teori analyseras övergångshandlingarnas funktion i ett större system. Studiens avgränsning utgörs av ett personalperspektiv, d.v.s. att studien efterfrågar berörda yrkesprofessioners uppfattningar och erfarenheter i frågan. Valet av kommuner grundar sig i att den mindre kommunen skickar gymnasieelever till den större kommunen och att där finns ett naturligt utbyte av övergångshandlingar sinsemellan. Datainsamlingen för denna studie utgår ifrån totalt fem intervjuer med yrkesprofessioner inom elevhälsan som skickar eller mottar övergångshandlingar. På grundskolan har två studie- och yrkesvägledare, två socialpedagoger och en specialpedagog intervjuats. En av dessa intervjuer var en gruppintervju. På gymnasiet har två specialpedagoger intervjuats. Materialet från intervjuerna har analyserats utifrån en fenomenografisk dataanalysmodell, vilket innefattar en stegvis bearbetning av material utifrån kategorierna utformning, innehåll, process, deltagande parter, hinder och framgångar. Resultatet visar att överlämningarnas utformning oftast utgörs av standardiserade dokument, till stor del bestående av krysslistor. Detta ansåg både högstadier och gymnasier vara otillräckligt. Muntliga samtal bedömdes mer effektivt för att rätt informationen ska förmedlas. Information som kan härledas till processer för problematisk skolfrånvaro övervägdes av insatser gentemot Push-out processer i form av redogörelser för extra anpassningar. Gymnasieskolor upplevde att de har svårare att möta elevers behov av anpassad undervisning för elever med problematisk skolfrånvaro jämfört med högstadieskolorna. Både högstadieskolor och gymnasieskolor upplevde att större vikt bör läggas vid individuella framgångsfaktorer och konkreta tips i samband med överlämningarna. Innehåll rörande elevens historik av problematisk skolfrånvaro upplevdes sparsam. Det framkom ett behov av att utöka den sociala delen av informationsinnehållet i överlämningarna samt mer preciserad information rörande elevens frånvaroproblematik för att gynna eleven i övergångsprocessen. De specialpedagogiska implikationerna i studien relaterar till elevhälsans involvering i övergångshandlingar. Där har specialpedagogen en särskild roll som ansvarig för pedagogiska insatser, vilket framkom i intervjuerna. Den specialpedagogiska behållningen av studiens resultat utgörs vidare av vikten att övergångshandlingarnas innehåll matchar elevens situation och har ett framgångsfokus, vilket mottagande elevhälsa kan bygga vidare på.

In this dissertation, I explore a selection of recent work in the philosophy and history of experiment, with an eye toward reformulating its focus and redirecting its future path. Specifically, I re-examine a traditional problem in the philosophy of experiment: how to make sense of scientists' attempts to separate experimental “signal” or “entity” from background “noise” or “artifact.” This aspect of the analysis of the practice of scientists—the day to day task of getting one's experimental equipment and techniques to give reliable results that will be accepted by prevailing scientific standards—requires modifications in order to be made compatible with an adequate notion of historiography and with a philosophically and historically tenable view of scientific epistemology. I show that the concept of historical narrative is a crucial, if not primary, construct in answering these questions about interpreting experimental practice. Particular historical narratives, and the historiographies that guide their construction, constitute the crucial evidence for any legitimate view of the epistemological and cultural significance of scientific experimentation. However, narrativity and historiography must be deconstructed before their conceptual significance for experimentation can be evaluated adequately. The metahistorical construct I implement in order to analyze questions concerning scientific experimentation is the technological infrastructure of science.Joseph Pitt's concept of the technological infrastructure of science, a material/cultural network of artifacts and structures that enables and sustains the mature sciences, provides the theoretical foundation for my analysis of experimentation. I extend and refine Pitt's concept of technological infrastructure in order to create a metahistorical tool that researchers in many fields, including Science and Technology Studies (STS), Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Technology, Cultural Studies (of Science and Technology), History of Science, and History of Technology, may utilize when analyzing experimentation. To this end, I develop the technological infrastructure as an incorporation, extension and/or replacement of, for example, Thomas Kuhn's “disciplinary matrix,” Bruno Latour's “network,” Peter Galison's “ short-, middle-, and long-term constraints,” Ian Hacking's “coherence of thought, action, materials, marks,” Hans-Jörg Rheinberger's “experimental system,” Andrew Pickering's “mangle of practice,” and Richard M. Burian's “interaction of mechanisms, of structures and functions, at a great many levels.” / Ph. D.

While considering the role of media in shaping and examining histories, we must also grapple with formal limitations in approaching and understanding the past. The thesis aims to bring video games into critical conversations regarding history, memory, and nostalgia by considering the similar and unique perspectives the medium can bring alongside film, television, radio, and literature. Player positionality and interactivity within the unconventional, non-linear game storytelling form allows for different engagements with history. Focusing on the futuristic, post-apocalyptic role-playing game Fallout 3 (2008), this study interrogates the game’s nuanced presentation of genre as a cultural mediation of the past, the negotiation of memory with history, and our problematic assumptions about technology and narratives of progress. While the study finds games may provide rewarding and potentially critical explorations of history, the self-reflexive nature of video gaming emphasizes the medium’s possibilities, limitations, and implications as a cultural product shaped by the very forces constructing history. / text

The impact of the Cold War on architecture in the United States is exemplified in the promotion and construction of fallout shelters. The development of the hydrogen bomb by the United States and Soviet Union in the first half of the 1950s increased fears of the far-reaching effect nuclear war could have on public health and safety. Government agencies, such as the Office of Civil Defense, promoted the widespread construction and use of the fallout shelter as a safeguard against human annihilation in the event of nuclear war. This thesis examines the various types of residential fallout shelters designed by public and private entities. The location of the fallout shelter within the family residence had the largest impact on the style and construction method adopted. This thesis investigates a wide variety of examples and techniques used to encourage fallout shelter construction. An in-depth discussion of the preservation of the residential shelter completes the text, including two examples of current preservation practices. / Nuclear weapons, the Cold War and a need for shelters -- Evolution, promotion and requiremens for residential fallout shelters -- Interior residential shelters -- Exterior residential shelters -- Preservation issues of the residential fallout shelter. / Access to thesis permanently restricted to Ball State community only / Department of Architecture

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 245-252).

<p>This project argues that the nuclear bomb has made speculation an integral part of representing the material world. The bomb’s capability to cause an unprecedented extent of destruction and the constant state of latent war between nuclear-armed countries (expressed through arms race and high alert readiness) created a reality where the disasters in the future must be constantly speculated to understand the contemporary world’s material state. The tens of thousands of nuclear warheads sleeping in silos and submarines are not just the sum of their material components, but also incredibly compressed embodiments of future disasters that may be released at a moment’s notice. Regardless of the likelihood of nuclear conflicts (with which this dissertation is not concerned), the weapon exerts its influence as one of the most catastrophic possibilities even as it remains dormant. In considering the implications of nuclear weapons, all nations and people on the planet think not of what they are, but what they can do. The weapon’s possible future states define its present significance.</p><p> The inherent oxymoron of the nuclear bomb is thus that despite its staggering materiality, it is fiction as well. Any representation of the bomb that ponders its sole purpose—mass destruction—is inevitably speculative. While the degrees in which they reference empirical data vary, the narratives from which people around the world from heads of nations to common citizens learn anything at all about nuclear weaponry are forms of fiction, ranging from fantastical literary fictions to strategic fictions attempting to represent the power of the weapon that is itself fantastical. Not all representations of the weapon or nuclear war are, of course, taken seriously. Apocalyptic nuclear events are often used in popular nuclear fictions as a convenient excuse for dismantling the existing social structures and providing interesting backdrops for survivalist stories. The very fact that imaginations of hypothetical nuclear disasters have become an overused cliché all the while proliferation remains an active threat, however, also indicates that the world has been living with the horrifying prospect of nuclear disasters for decades without an actual event of the kind—that, in other words, the weapon has existed mostly as a fiction. The introduction of the nuclear bomb to the world in this sense marks a critical point in history beyond which the speculated future outcomes of the productions in the present increasingly becomes an integral part of understanding the latter.</p><p>The central concept with which I articulate the relationship between the present and the future created by nuclear weaponry is “eventuality.” Eventuality is a narrativization process through which a historical event develops into an anticipated future event as the original event’s outcome. A story about a fictional World War III involving nuclear weapons, for example, is a form of eventuality. The conceptual usefulness of eventuality is that it articulates the historical trend in the post-1945 era as well as the more recent years of climate change, in which hypothetical future events are increasingly represented not just for the purpose of knowing the future itself, but also reassessing the history to date. Eventuality establishes a causal relation between an event and its hypothetical future outcome—or its “eventual” as I call it. By drawing a line of synthetic history extending beyond the present, eventuality as a narrativization process defines the direction in which history has been heading up to the present. Compared to the postmodernist understanding of the representation of the past, eventuality is concerned with how human productions in the present already creates the future and, consequently, how the very ways in which we conceive the present is influenced by the possible futures.</p><p>To discuss the concept of eventuality in detail, the first chapter examines time travel narratives as ideal instances of eventuality. Eventuality consists in two operations running in opposite temporal directions—speculatively writing the future (prospection) and assessing history in light of that speculated future (retrospection). The literary genre that embodies this exact pair of movements is the time travel narrative. H. G. Wells’s novel <i>The Time Machine </i>(1895), the first scientific time travel story, creates a critical legacy for the genre: the assumption that the entirety of time already exists. The conceptualization of the already-existing future is important because it emphasizes the causal relation between the present and the future—the future which the time traveler witnesses is the direct outcome of his present. In the movie adaptation produced during the Cold War, the dystopian course of history is rewritten to be a nuclear war narrative, which suggests that the time travel narrative as a base frame has been appropriated by the desire to speculate the future born with the nuclear bomb. Then decades later the <i>Terminator </i>movies develop the time travel narrative as an instance of eventuality even further by creating a scenario in which the future is no longer just an uncharted territory to be explored, but an active force that has a direct sway over the present’s world. </p><p>Along with literary fictions of nuclear disasters, strategic studies on nuclear conflicts also attempt to represent the nonexistent events of future disasters. The historical significance of the advent of wargaming, a major form of nuclear strategic fiction, is that even the comparatively scientific and empirical study of nuclear war funded by the U.S. military is fundamentally speculative. The very formation and development of wargaming, in other words, is an indication that the nuclear weapon brings with it unknown possibilities for the future. The legitimacy of a wargame’s findings is dependent on that of the future projection used in the scenario. But since the latter is itself speculative and thus cannot be proven, the narrative logic of a wargame is circular or self-referential. This circularity is exactly the structure of the synthetic history in the <i>Terminator </i>films, which is a form of eventuality in which the present creates the future and the future retrospectively redefines the present.</p><p>The nuclear bomb, finally, also contributed to the advent of ecological worldview with its ecocidal nature and sheer extent of destructive capability. Geosciences in the U.S. experienced a rapid growth following the second World War, as the military pursued global surveillance for nuclear activities. Some of the same scientists who developed the weapons also began to study the interactions between radiation and the human body, as the workers in the weapons production lines began to experience radiation sickness. This kind of research was soon expanded to the study of radiation’s ecological effects on a broader scale involving not just the human bodies but also other environmental entities, organic and inorganic. Civilian research projects, in the meantime, found a widespread impact of weapons tests, including the “bone seeker” radioisotopes accumulated in the human body. Lastly, in terms of the more general way of understanding the world, the cases of radiation exposures discovered far away from the sources offered people around the world points of reference with which they could conceive an ecologically interconnected network on a planetary scale. </p>

This Master’s thesis in Media, Aesthetics, and Narration can be viewed as a pilot study which examines the intricacies of worldbuilding in dystopian settings, emphasizing the impact of different starting points—micro and macro perspectives—on the creation process. Given the vast scope of worldbuilding, the thesis narrows its focus to these two approaches: the micro perspective, which delves into detailed elements like character and setting specifics, and the macro perspective, which considers broader societal structures and overarching narratives. To evaluate these approaches, a visual model was developed and tested by a narrative student and a senior UX designer, and applied to two distinct dystopian video game settings. Through analysis and evaluation, the thesis aims to provide insights into the worldbuilding process, fostering understanding and discussion about micro and macro approaches in dystopian fiction and contributing to ongoing research in narratology and world crafting.

published_or_final_version / Mechanical Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy

Les panaches volcaniques de téphras constituent un des aléas volcaniques majeurs. Pour prévoir leur dispersion et les zones d'impacts de leurs retombées, des modèles numériques sont utilisés en opérationnel et basés sur des paramètres éruptifs, regroupés sous la notion de terme source, caractérisant l'émission des panaches. L'ensemble du terme source est cependant difficile à mesurer en temps réel. C'est pourquoi les modèles de dispersion sont souvent basés sur des scénarios d'éruptions passées et utilisent des lois empiriques reliant la hauteur des panaches avec les flux massiques à la source. Cependant, les résultats qui découlent de ces modèles sont peu contraints, moyennés sur la durée des éruptions, et souffrent de larges incertitudes. Dans cette optique, les radars Doppler, capables de sonder l'intérieur des colonnes éruptives avec des échelles spatio-temporelles fines, peuvent fournir des contraintes cruciales sur le terme source des panaches en temps réel. Ce travail de thèse traite des applications de radars volcanologiques dédiés, potentiellement transposables aux radars météorologiques communément utilisés, afin de fournir des paramètres éruptifs à la source des panaches de téphras en surveillance opérationnelle mais également pour contraindre la dynamique des colonnes éruptives et les charges internes des panaches et de leurs retombées. Une campagne de mesures au volcan Stromboli a permis de montrer les capacités d'un couplage innovant entre un disdromètre optique (Parsivel2) avec un nouveau radar Doppler à onde millimétrique (Mini-BASTA). Grâce à l'excellente résolution spatio-temporelle de Mini-BASTA (12,5 m et 1 s), des figures intermittentes de sédimentation ont été observées dans les retombées de panaches transitoires dilués. Observées également au disdromètre mesurant la vitesse et la taille des retombées, ces figures ont été reproduites en laboratoire grâce à un modèle analogique. Un modèle conceptuel de formation de thermiques de sédimentation inversés est proposé pour expliquer ces figures et implique que les processus menant à une sédimentation irrégulière typique des panaches soutenus et concentrés peuvent s'appliquer à des panaches dilués, y compris ceux issus d'éruptions Stromboliennes normales en régime transitoire. Ensuite, une caractérisation physique d'un grand nombre de particules de cendres échantillonnées à Stromboli a permis de valider les mesures de tailles et de vitesses terminales de chutes par disdromètre sur le terrain et en laboratoire, justifiant par ailleurs son utilisation opérationnelle. A partir de ces contraintes, une loi reliant les concentrations de cendres avec les facteurs de réflectivité calculés a pu être comparée aux mesures radar in situ. Les concentrations internes modale et maximale des panaches de Stromboli sont respectivement autour de 1 × 10-5 kg m-3 et 7,45 × 10-4 kg m-3, largement supérieures au seuil fixé pour la sécurité aérienne. Les concentrations en cendres des retombées s’étalent entre 1,87 × 10-8 - 2,42 × 10-6 kg m-3 avec un mode vers 4 × 10-7 kg m-3.Finalement, ce travail de thèse montre les applications opérationnelles du radar UHF VOLDORAD 2B dans le cadre de la surveillance de l'activité de l'Etna. Une méthodologie, applicable à tout radar Doppler, a été développée pour obtenir des flux de masse de téphras en temps réel à partir d’un proxy de masse, uniquement basé sur les vitesses d'éjection et puissances mesurées, calibré avec un modèle de colonne tenant compte de l'influence du vent sur les panaches. La gamme de flux trouvée pour 47 paroxysmes entre 2011 et 2015 s’étend de 2.96 × 104 à 3.26 × 106 kg s-1. A partir d’un autre modèle de colonne éruptive, Plume-MoM, les flux radar ont permis de modéliser des hauteurs des panaches de téphras émis lors de quatre paroxysmes de l'Etna cohérentes avec les observations faites en temps réel par imagerie visible et par radar en bande-X. (...) / Volcanic tephra plumes are one of the major volcanic hazards. To forecast their dispersion and the impact zones of their fallout, the numerical models used in operational monitoring are based on eruptive parameters, called the source term, characterizing the plume emission. Source term parameters are challenging to measure in real time. This is why dispersion models are often based on past eruptive scenarios and use empirical laws that relate plume heights to source mass fluxes. However, the model outputs are not well constrained, averaged over the eruption duration, and suffer from large uncertainties. In this topic, Doppler radars are capable of probing the interior of eruptive columns and plumes at high space-time resolution and can provide crucial constraints on the source term in real time. This thesis deals with applications in operational monitoring of dedicated volcanological radars, potentially transposable to most common meteorological radars, to provide eruptive parameters at the source of tephra plumes but also to constrain the dynamics and internal mass load of eruptive columns, volcanic plumes and their fallout.A measurement campaign at Stromboli volcano has shown the capabilities of an innovative coupling between an optical disdrometer (Parsivel2) and a new 3-mm wave Doppler radar (Mini-BASTA). Owing to its high spatio-temporal resolution (12.5 m and 1 s), intermittent sedimentation patterns were observed in the fallout of dilute transient plumes typical of normal strombolian activity. These features, also recorded with the disdrometer, measuring the particle settling speeds and sizes, were reproduced in the laboratory using an analog model. A conceptual model for the formation of reversed sedimentation thermals is proposed to explain these features. It implies that processes leading to irregular sedimentation typical of sustained concentrated strong plumes can be applied to dilute weak plumes, including those formed by normal transient Strombolian activity. Then, a physical characterization of a large number of ash particles sampled at Stromboli allowed the validation of particle size and terminal velocity measurements by the disdrometer in the field and in the laboratory, arguing in favor of its operational use. Then, a physical characterization of a large number of ash particles sampled at Stromboli allowed to validate the measurements of size and terminal velocity of falls by disdrometer in the field and in laboratory, justifying also its operational use. From these constraints, a law relating ash concentrations with calculated reflectivity factors was found and compared to in situ radar measurements inside ash plumes and fallout. The modal and maximum internal concentrations of Strombolian plumes are at about 1 × 10-5 kg m-3 and 7.5 × 10-4 kg m-3 respectively, well above the threshold for aviation safety. Ash concentrations in the fallout range from 1.9× 10-8 to 2.4 × 10-6 kg m-3 with a mode at about 4 × 10-7 kg m-3.Finally, this thesis work shows operational applications of the UHF VOLDORAD 2B radar for the monitoring of explosive activity at Etna. A methodology, applicable to any Doppler radar, has been developed to obtain tephra mass eruption rates in real time from a mass proxy, based only on measured ejection velocities and power, and calibrated with an eruptive column model taking crosswinds into account. Tephra mass fluxes found for 47 paroxysms between 2011 and 2015 range from 3 × 104 to over 3 × 106 kg s-1. Then, tephra plumes heights of four Etna paroxysms were simulated using the eruptive column model Plume-MoM from the radar-derived mass eruption rates and were found consistent with real-time observations made by visible imagery and by X-band radar. This last part demonstrates the capabilities of VOLDORAD 2B to provide quantitative input parameters for dispersion models in the case of future Etna paroxysms. (...)

Thin fallout tuffs in the Duchesne River Formation in the Uinta Basin, Utah are evidence that volcanism was active in northern Nevada and Utah in the late Eocene. The Uinta Basin is a sedimentary basin that formed during the Laramide orogeny. Ponded lakes of various salinity filled and emptied and during the late Eocene the northern rim was dominated by a wetland/floodplain depositional setting. Most of the tuffs have rhyolitic mineral assemblages including quartz, biotite, sanidine, and allanite. Rhyolitic glass shards were also found in one of the ash beds. Biotite compositions have Fe/(Fe+Mg) ratios typical of calc-alkaline igneous rocks and clusters of biotite compositions suggest 3 or 4 volcanic events. Sanidine compositions from five samples grouped at Or73 and Or79. Only one sample had plagioclase with compositions ranging between An22 - An49. Some beds also contained accessory phases of titanite, apatite, and zircon. Whole rock compositions of the altered volcanic ash beds indicate these tuffs underwent post-emplacement argillic alteration, typical of a wetland/floodplain depositional setting. Immobile element ratios and abundances, such as Zr/Nb and Y are typical of a subduction zone tectonic setting and rhyolitic composition. 40Ar/39Ar ages constrain the timing of volcanism. One plagioclase and one sanidine separate from two different tuff beds yielded ages of 39.47 ± 0.16 Ma and 39.36± 0.15 Ma respectively. These dates, along with the compositional data seem to limit the eruptive source for these fallout tuffs to the northeast Nevada volcanic field. These new ages, along with previously published ages in the Bishop Conglomerate which unconformably overlies the Duchesne River Formation, constrain the timing of two uplift periods of the Uinta Mountains at 39 Ma and 34 Ma. Finally, the ages also date the fauna of the Duchesnean Land Mammal Age to be about 39.4 Ma as opposed to less precise earlier estimates that placed it between 42 and 33 Ma.