Josh Folk explains how the traditional rules of physics don't make sense at the quantum-mechanical level - and how those discrepancies can be turned into opportunities.

This dissertation presents results from three studies that address major scientific questions in glacial geology and paleoclimatology for the late Pleistocene and Holocene using relatively new geochemical and statistical techniques. Each of the studies attempts to answer a longstanding question in the respective field using geochemical or statistical methods that have not been applied to the problem thus far. A longstanding question in glaciology is the nature and mechanism of the so- called "Heinrich events" of the last ~60 ka. These massive iceberg discharge events into the North Atlantic from the partial breakup of the Laurentide Ice Sheet are identified from distinct ice rafted debris and detrital carbonate layers in marine sediment cores. The mechanism associated with the initiation of these events is commonly thought to be related to internal ice sheet instabilities. However, Heinrich events consistently occur following a long cooling trend that culminates in an extreme cold event, thus suggesting a possible triggering mechanism by climate. Recent modeling work has proposed an oceanic mechanism associated with ocean warming, but no physical evidence has been made available to date. To test this ocean-warming hypothesis, we measured temperature sensitive trace metals and stable isotopes in benthic foraminifera from a sediment core collected in the western North Atlantic that spans the last six Heinrich events and compared our results to climate model simulations using CCSM3. Our results show subsurface warming occurred prior to or coeval with nearly all of the Heinrich events of the last ~60 ka, thus implicating subsurface ocean warming as the main trigger of these rapid breakups of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. In the field of glacial geology a longstanding question has been the timing of alpine glacial advances during the Holocene. A number of studies have interpreted several Holocene glacial advances in western North America, but age control is based largely on relative dating techniques, which have been shown to be in error by up to 10,000 yrs in some cases. Based on 124 ¹⁰Be surface exposure ages from twenty cirque moraines in ten mountain ranges across western North America, glacier were retreating from moraine positions during the latest Pleistocene or earliest Holocene and not throughout the Holocene epoch as previously assumed, thus requiring a refined interpretation of Holocene glacial activity in western North America and the associated climate forcing. In the field of paleoclimatology a question regarding how global temperature varied over the entirety of the Holocene epoch has remained to be answered for some time. While many temperature reconstructions exist for the last 2000 years, a full Holocene temperature stack does not exist, despite its potential utility of putting modern climate change into a full interglacial perspective. Based on a global composite of 73 proxy based temperature record, a Holocene temperature stack was constructed and used to demonstrate that a general cooling of ~1°C has occurred from the early to mid Holocene and that centennial and millennial scale variability is modest. We account for both temperature calibration and chronologic uncertainties using a Monte Carlo based approach. Our results are consistent with prior reconstructions of the last 2000 years and now allow for a full Holocene temperature perspective for evaluation with present and future climate change. / Graduation date: 2011 / Access restricted to the OSU Community, at author's request, from May 5, 2011 - May 5, 2012

On a brisk fall night in Detroit, after watching the San Francisco Giants celebrate the 2012 World Series championship live, baseball agent, Michael Moye, hailed a cab for the airport – the post season had ended and free agency was underway. Moye, who had years of experience managing players, knew that this off-season would be different from the rest. He was heading to Westlake, Texas, to meet his star client, outfielder Josh Hamilton, who had entered free agency after five years with the Texas Rangers.

Abstract Josh Fox's film Gasland, released in 2010, started the national debate concerning the process of hydraulic fracturing and launched the term "fracking" into the public consciousness. Gasland, nominated for four Emmy Awards, was the winner of the 2010 Environmental Media Award for Best Documentary, the Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize, and the Yale Environmental Film Festival Grand Jury Prize. Using the momentum from the film's popular reception, Fox and the Gasland team successfully established a grassroots movement that was responsible for helping create the Frack Act and a moratorium of fracking in the Delaware River Shed. This thesis intends to determine what made Gasland so influential. Through a rhetorical criticism and media analysis, I will show how Fox's film ignited the debate on domestic natural gas production and has created a multi-public literacy that enables social change.

The poems that form this collection titled, Pretend the Ball is Named Jim Crow, are written in the persona of Negro League Baseball’s Josh Gibson (1911-1947) and those closest to him. Gibson is credited with hitting over 800 home runs in his career and was the first Negro League Baseball Player to be inducted into Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame without ever playing an inning of Major League Baseball.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2001. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 243-250). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

In this paper I will describe the creative process throughout the making of my short film thesis GRAND. I will describe this in three parts: pre-production, wherein I will detail developing the concept, writing the script, and funding/preparing for production; production, wherein I will detail the set construction, visual planning, and the day-to-day operations on set; and post-production, wherein I will detail the editing of the film and the composition of the score. All of this will be framed in reference to the proposed theme of the film, and I will conclude by evaluating whether or not the finished short film achieves what I initially set out to achieve.

Thesis (M.A.)--Trinity International University, Deerfield, Ill., 1998. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 105-109).

Despite having roots in 19th century Europe, Marxism had a deep impact on the trajectory of political ideas in the non-European world in the twentieth century. In particular, anti-colonial thinkers engaged productively with Marx’s ideas as part of their struggle against Empire. Yet, little attention has been paid to the displacements and innovations in political thought as a result of this encounter between anti-colonialism and Marxism. This dissertation aims to fill this gap by studying the history of Indian communism, focusing on the first three decades of the communist movement (1921-1950). I claim that this is an ideal time period to interrogate the formation of political ideas in India, since they presented themselves with particular intensity in the midst of an unfolding anti-colonial struggle, and arguably, the birth of the Indian political. The entry of communist ideas into the charged political environment of the 1920s had an impact on the ideological debates within the Indian polity, as well as stamping Indian communism with its own specific historicity. Through a tracing of debates among communist leaders, as well as their non-communist interlocutors, this work seeks to provide a novel lens to consider the relationship between ideas and their historical actualization, or between the universal and its instantiation in the particular. Moreover, the dissertation argues that the radically different socio-political and historical landscapes of Western Europe and colonial India necessitated a confrontation with the stagist view of history dominant in the history of Western Marxism, prompting novel theoretical work on the issue of political temporality. Consequently, the relationship between necessity and volition, central to enlightenment thought, was radically transformed in the colonial world, particularly in terms of its entanglement with the problem of subjective violence. Engagement with such questions not only impacted Indian political thought, but transformed global communism itself, putting into question the concept of an “originary site” for political ideas. Thus, this work intervenes in debates in three distinct registers: Global Intellectual History, Marxist theory and Indian political thought.

Composed exclusively in the last decade, Joshua Rist's works have received significant performances by numerous high-profile ensembles including prominent high school, collegiate, and community choirs. Although conductors continue to program his works with increased frequency, minimal scholarly work is published about this music and its composer. The quality of Rist's body of work coupled with a scarcity of scholarly research provides opportunity for further study. Closer examination of Rist's works could provide a framework for conductors who perform his music. This study provides background and bibliographic information on the composer. It contains a review of choral works by Rist highlighting critical elements within each work that provide a framework for future performances of his works. This dissertation identifies stylistic characteristics that define Rist's compositional style. Additionally, it highlights the evolution of Rist's artistic growth and development.