My dissertation is a study of how merchants in Trecento Italy used the imagery they commissioned as a form of moral self-representation and as a practical tool in their pursuit of eternal life in heaven. The study is grounded in the theoretical framework of Michael Baxandall’s concept of the “period eye,” that is, the belief that “social facts lead to the development of distinctive visual skills and habits.” (Baxandall, 1988) A primary social fact affecting medieval merchants was their long association in Christian culture with the individual and societal evils related to the pursuit of money and wealth—the sin of avarice. This linkage was expressed across the entire range of medieval cultural expression, in texts, sermons, and imagery. The challenge for merchants, therefore, was to publicly demonstrate that they earned their money ethically and legally, that they led a morally sound life, and that they used a portion of their money for the common good, especially in caring for the poor. The commissioning and public/semi-public display of imagery thus became a way of portraying a merchant’s moral identity as a worthy civic and Christian citizen, with all of the temporal and spiritual benefits that might produce. In order to better understand how such imagery served these objectives, I have developed an analytical framework I call the Merchant’s Moral Eye. This framework consists of eight primary dimensions that I believe were fundamental to the formation of merchants’ moral beliefs and behaviours during this period. These dimensions are: 1. Purgatory 2. Medieval Spaces 3. Christian Symbolism 4. Obligation & Reciprocity 5. The Virtues & Vices 6. Fama 7. Hospitality 8. Coats of Arms Collectively, these interlaced, multidisciplinary dimensions provide a systematic approach to produce the robust contextualisation needed to explore why, and how, merchants used imagery to achieve their objectives. However, while this study’s focus is solely on the moral and salvific functions of this imagery, it needs to be remembered that the same imagery also served other more worldly objectives, be they social, economic, or political. As an analytical tool this framework enables three fundamental functions with respect to the underlying motives, meanings, and uses of merchant-commissioned art in Trecento Italy: - an assessment of the feasibility of existing interpretations - the enhancement or nuancing of existing interpretations - the identification and explication of wholly new interpretations To demonstrate the effectiveness of the framework in achieving the above, I have selected, as case studies, three merchants in three different locations, whose artistic commissions spanned the entire Trecento. These individuals and their imaged artifacts are: 1. Enrico Scrovegni of Padua and the Arena Chapel, decorated by Giotto 1303-5. 2. Domenico Lenzi of Florence and his illuminated manuscript, Lo Specchio umano (The Mirror of Humanity), produced c. 1340; 3. Francesco Datini of Prato and the Palazzo Datini, decorated in the 1390s. These individuals represent a cross-section of Trecento Italian merchants in terms of status, wealth, and public profile. These merchants and their commissioned artworks are discussed in detail using the framework dimensions as modes of enquiry to show how this imagery supported their self-representation as honest merchants and dutiful Christians, and generated the prayers and other suffrages they assumed they needed to eventually get to Heaven. In all three case studies there were significant findings that fulfilled each of the analytical functions noted above, thereby confirming the utility of the Merchant’s Moral Eye Analytical Framework as an effective methodological approach. / Graduate / 2022-05-27

Yunnan, southwestern China, represents a modern biodiversity center for Rubus (Rosaceae). The history for this high modern diversity remains poorly known due to the lack of fossil evidence. In this report, fossil pyrenes of Rubus are taxonomically studied from the late Pliocene (Piacenzian) of Lanping County, northwestern Yunnan. These pyrenes show a greater morphological variation than that of extant Rubus pyrenes within the same species, indicating that they belong to different taxa of Rubus. Based on comparisons with both modern and other fossil species, our fossil pyrenes are assigned to five taxa, including a newly established one, Rubus lanpingensis nov. sp. These fossils suggest a somewhat high species diversity of Rubus in Lanping, a small area in northwestern Yunnan, during the late Pliocene. This provides the first fossil perspective for an understanding of the historical background of the modern Rubus diversity in a limited geographic area of Yunnan. The inferred palaeobiodiversity is probably associated with a large environmental heterogeneity in a limited area of Yunnan at that time.

The Great American Biotic Interchange is considered to be a punctuated process, primarily occurring during four major pulses that began approximately 2.5 Ma. Central America and southeastern Mexico have a poor fossil record of this dynamic faunal history due to tropical climates. Exploration of submerged caves in the Yucatán, particularly the natural trap Hoyo Negro, is exposing a rich and remarkably well-preserved late Pleistocene fauna. Radiometric dates on megafauna range from approximately 38 400-12 850 cal BP, and extinct species include the ursid Arctotherium wingei and canid Protocyon troglodytes. Both genera were previously thought to be indigenous to and confined to South America and appear to represent an instance of large placental mammals, descended from North American progenitors, migrating back north across the Panama Isthmus. This discovery expands the distribution of these carnivorans greater than 2000 km outside South America. Their presence along with a diverse sloth assemblage suggests a more complex history of these organisms in Middle America. We suggest that landscape and ecological changes caused by latest Pleistocene glaciation supported an interchange pulse that included A. wingei, P. troglodytes and Homo sapiens.

Dissertation submitted to the FacuIty ofArts for the Masters degree in Clinical Psychology in the Department of Psychology at the University of Zululand, 1997. / This report documents a qualitative description of the special needs expressed by persons with late stage AIDS in the Richards Bay area. A phenomenological research design and methods were employed to impose rigour on this event. Once the needs of persons with late stage AIDS had been made explicit, these were collated with services rendered or planned through state and welfare structures in the Richards Bay area in an effort to identify salient unfulfilled needs that could be addressed through the establishment of an AIDS Care Centre. This provided important cues regarding the types of services and facilities required at the AIDS Care Centre. Additionally the unstructured interviews employed in the research provided the interviewees with an opportunity to suggest a format of care at the AIDS Care Centre that would be most suitable for them.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Neuroimaging biomarkers play a crucial role in our understanding of Alzheimer’s disease. Beyond providing a fast and accurate in vivo picture of the neuronal structure and biochemistry, these biomarkers make up a research framework, defined in a 2018 as the A(amyloid)/T(tau)/N(neurodegeneration) framework after three of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease. I first used imaging measures of amyloid, tau and neurodegeneration to study clinically diagnosed Alzheimer’s disease. After dividing subjects into early (onset younger than 65) and late-onset (onset of 65 and older) amyloid-positive (AD) and amyloid-negative (nonAD) groups, I saw radically differing topographical distribution of tau and neurodegeneration. AD subjects with an early disease onset had a much more severe amyloid, tau and neurodegeneration than lateonset AD. In the nonAD group, neurodegeneration was found only in early-onset FDG PET data and in a nonAlzheimer’s-like MRI and FDG pattern for late-onset. The late-onset nonAD resembled that of limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy. I next utilized an imaging genetics approach to associate genome-wide significant Alzheimer’s risk variants to structural (MRI), metabolic (FDG PET) and tau (tau PET) imaging biomarkers. Linear regression was used to select variants for each of the models and included a pooled sample, cognitively normal, mild cognitive impairment and dementia groups in order to fully capture the cognitive spectrum from normal cognition to the most severely impaired. Model selected variants were replicated using voxelwise regression in an exploratory analysis of spatial associations for each modality. For each imaging type, I replicated some associations to the biomarkers previously seen, as well as identified several novel associations. Several variants identified with crucial Alzheimer’s biomarkers may be potential future targets for drug interventions.

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This thesis investigates similarities and differences in the chemistry of the Linear B clay tablets and sealings found at the Palace of Nestor in Pylos, located in the western Peloponnese, Greece. Their chemistry provides clues regarding the flow of material goods in and out of the palace and therefore to the degree of centralization of the political-economy. Over a thousand 3,000 year-old clay tablets and sealings currently housed at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens were analyzed using a pXRF over the course of the summers of 2015 and 2016. The chemical compositions were analyzed statistically. Results of the study and the conclusions are presented here.

Understanding the impact of late season precipitation on the distribution of cotton yields provides insight into managing yield risks. This research combines Linear Moment Models with historical weather data to assess the impact of late season precipitation extremes on cotton production and revenue. The empirical analysis suggests that late season drought reduces both mean yield and variance. The shift in variance is coupled with an exchange of upside risk for downside risk implying that the variance reduction alone masks an important effect on producer’s risk. Revenue impacts suggest high revenue for irrigated acreage as compared to dryland acreage, and the late season drought impact on revenue shows that the use of irrigation causes increases in revenue as compared to dryland acreage.

Scholarship on Gustav Mahler’s (1860–1911) late works is often overshadowed by the events of 1907: the death of his daughter, his resignation from the Vienna Court Opera, and the diagnosis of his heart condition. The subjective juxtaposition of this biographical detail on his last works—Das Lied von der Erde (1908), the Ninth Symphony (1909), and the Tenth Symphony (1910, unfinished)—has provoked the application of themes of death, transcendence, and farewell as extra-musical elements to his music. While scholars such as Vera Micznik, Henry-Louis de La Grange, and Stephen Hefling have called the acceptance of this program into question, there has yet to be a more objective analysis of Mahler’s last works via the lens of late style theory. This thesis explores two of Mahler’s last works, Das Lied and the Ninth, through the application of Edward Said’s theory of late style. Rather than approaching death with harmony, resolution, and transfiguration, the late artist in Said’s theory evokes “intransigence, difficulty, and unresolved contradiction”. Instead of a psychological or biographical interpretation of late style, Said’s theory focuses on irreconcilable characteristics that set the artist apart from the age in an anachronistic way. Following his more objective approach of interpreting late style, this thesis relies on the musical elements that characterize Mahler’s late style, categorized as anachronism, disintegration, and evasion of closure. Through the discourse of Said’s late style theory, this thesis reveals alternative means of interpreting Mahler’s late style that avoids the myth of the artist transfigured by death.

Fragments of a charred wooden bowl were recovered from Aztalan during excavations by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin (SHSW) in 1964. Recent advances in analytical methods facilitated a multidimensional study of these fragments. Radiocarbon-dated to cal AD 994–1154 and found in association with Late Woodland, Mississippian, and hybrid forms of ceramics, the bowl augments our understanding of perishable technologies in these cultural contexts. 3-D models of the fragments allow for a virtual reconstruction of a portion of the bowl, which was carved from a solid piece of ash. Strontium isotope analysis of the wood indicates that the bowl was manufactured from wood locally available to the people at Aztalan.