The current Islamic Republic of Iran distinguishes between homosexuals and same-sex sexual activity: the former is not recognized as an identity, while state apparatuses openly condemn the latter. Beginning in Iran's medieval period, through its current Islamic regime, this dissertation argues that the allowances made for behaviors and attitudes for queer same-sex sexual intimacies in the historiography of Iranian sexuality are very distinct from the modern and Western notion of `gay'. Same-sex sexual relations in Iran threaten the conventional order that is built on an accepted series of gender differences reinforced by the Islamic regime. Marginalization of Iran's queer population permeates into local Iranian communities, creating ruptures with society and family. In the face of a generally repressive and heteronormative Iranian state, as well as the prospect of resettlement abroad, Iranian queers are fleeing to Turkey. This dissertation examines the processes by which queer Iranians face unprecedented forms of stigmatization and violence in Iran and later in Turkey. Going beyond a simple report of homophobic abuse in the Middle East, I engage ethnography as a vehicle by which to appreciate the effects of the constant silencing of queer voices and issues on social, familial, governmental and religious relations in Iran. During the summer of 2012, I conducted 24 qualitative interviews with queer Iranian asylum seekers and refugees in Turkey to assess the impact of societal and state consequences for queers in Iran, and later as refugees. Migration into Turkey reworks social relations based on race, sexual orientation and nationality; Iranians are both victims of and agents within the processes of asylum. An analysis of Iranians vis-à-vis one another, as well as their relations with local Turks, will explain the way race and sexual orientation impact migrant life. My research examines how the failure of figuring non-heteronormative sexuality into modern social, national, religious and academic discourses of Iranian culture is destructive on a human rights level, as it fails to generate new possibilities for developing truthful identities in Iranian and Turkish society and human rights law concerning queers.

Even though aid is a cornerstone of the Egyptian-American relationship, there is little research about economic aid's role in achieving US objectives, especially in producing policy alignment that would normalize Israel. Likewise, an under-studied derivative question is how the stipulation to maintain peace with Israel affected the (1) economic and structural processes of aligning Egypt with the American vision of `market-democracy' and (2) Egyptian critical assessments of the (non-military) effects associated with alignment into the American orbit? I argue that a reforming and democratizing narrative was used to transform Egypt into a stable "market-democracy" whose prosperity entailed pursuit of a "warm" peace. The transformation depended upon a dual strategy, combining the targeting of "natural allies" among a complicit elite as well as on privatization to align businesses, territories, civil organizations, and institutions or segments therein with American interests. The strategy's success in achieving alignment was also its weakness. Dependence on an autocratic elite for the implementation of reforms had the counter-effects of facilitating corruption and of reducing regime incentives to expand its constituencies of support beyond direct beneficiaries of the neoliberal privatizing changes. Instead of debate and engagement with opposing views to build new alliances, the strategy superseded and avoided sites of opposition. Therefore, contrary to the original aim of aid provision, the peace remained cold while its normalization dimensions became discursive triggers used as prisms with which to judge aid, the neoliberal reformist agenda, as well as normalization. The new partnerships provoked the production of competing conceptualizations of the proper relationship between the state and its citizens, conveyed in legal and constitutional re-definitions and re-distributions of rights and duties, as well as in divergent nationalist visions for Egypt's future. These competing ideas ranged between a nationalism that is globalizing, free-market, US- and regime-supported and another vision that is traditional, historically-informed, and socio-culturally-sensitive. Normalization's connection with aid had the counter-theoretical effect of reducing aid's ability to engender Gramscian hegemony. The US strategy of targeting allies and of privatization to effect normalization could not overcome extant socio-political forces whose discourses charged that aid produced anything but subordination (taba'iyya) - which differed significantly from promises of "peace, stability, and growth". Ultimately, even "reforming and democratizing" aid efforts could not disguise the subordinating effects of market and political alignment, and thus were not sufficient to elicit a new "common sense."

This dissertation provides an understanding of Sediqeh Dowlatabadi's notion of modernity and her contribution to the Iranian women's movement by an examination of her life and writings. In particular, the dissertation pays attention to her role as a newspaper publisher of Zaban-e Zanan (Women's Tongue) and director of the Kanun-e Banuvan (Women's Society.) Dowlatabadi's understanding of her social condition was based on the space she found herself within at different phases of her life; the concept of modernity she held in her youth, which was partially inhibited by societal expectations, was not the view of modernity she ascribed to in the later stages of her career and has become known for as a pioneer of Iranian women's rights.In Chapter Two, Dowlatabadi's formative environment and benefits from a politically and culturally fluid space because of her family's heterodox religious ties and participation in events leading up to and during the Iranian Constitutional Revolution (1905-1911 CE) are examined. In this environment Sediqeh received a strong education but continued to adhere to many common cultural practices. Thereafter, in Chapter Three, Dowlatabadi's actions and writings during the first run of her publication are examined. "A Pitiful Story," which is a piece of Dowlatabadi's fiction from the period, is analyzed utilizing neo-historicist criticism. During this time period the public space allowed her to imagine a somewhat more liberal notion of modernity than many of her contemporaries. In Chapter Four, Dowlatabadi's support to go abroad and reasons for moving to an international space are considered. Her interactions with the international women's movement and the new space she found herself in are analyzed in Chapter Five; regardless, she remained true to her own Iranian-ness above all else. Finally, in Chapter Six, Dowlatabadi's return to Iran is deconstructed as is her behavior of working within the Pahlavi system to oppose it.Dowlatabadi made many unique contributions to the Iranian women's movement and the international women's movement. Dowlatabadi, in her role as an advocate of Iranian modernity, created a façade for herself as an "every woman" which other Iranian women could identify with and aspire to be.

Throughout Islamic history, Islamic schools of law (madhāhib) enjoyed tremendous authority. In addition, traditional religious institutions that have taught the doctrines of the various Islamic schools of law have also wielded similar authority within the Arab-Muslim states. However, Arab-Muslim intellectuals challenged the authority of these madhāhib both from within the madhāhib and from outside of them. As a result, consensus (ijmā`) reached by past jurists of the madhāhib, has also been challenged in favor of a new type of ijtihād known as collective ijtihād. This new method of ijtihād allows professional women to participate in the process of lawmaking alongside men as reforms are made to Islamic family law. As a consequence of this legal process, the authoritarian method of traditional consensus (ijmā`) has been weakened in favor of more inclusive methods which allow for the creation of laws that are more favorable to women. Over the course of the twentieth century there has been a dynamic and ongoing debate within both traditionalist and reformist circles of Arab-Muslim society regarding the topic of marriage. Muslim conversations regarding the marriage contract demonstrate that the debates over family law in general, and the marriage contract in particular, are complex and challenging. The fact that not all Arab-Muslim intellectuals and muftīs share the same opinion regarding the legal age of marriage for women, the role of the marriage guardian (walī) in marriage, or the right of women to conduct their own marriages, for example, illustrates this point. Even individuals from within the same Islamist party have vastly differing opinions. While some argue for the preservation of the Islamic tradition by the continued restriction of a wife's role in her marriage, others want to grant women broader agency in some aspects of the marriage contract. All intellectuals, traditionalists, Salafis, and reformists, however, draw on past Islamic authority--the Qur'anic text, the Sunna of the Prophet, and past jurists' opinions--in order to legitimize their argument in an effort to preserve the identity of Muslim society and its core foundation, the Muslim family. Chapter one of this dissertation introduces the origins of Muslim jurists' opinions and rulings in Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh). While the chapter outlines the opinions of the majority of jurists regarding the age of puberty (bulūgh) for men and women, the age of financial competency (rushd), and the legal age of marriage, it also illustrates the opinions of minority jurists who reject the marriage of minors outright. Chapter two demonstrates the opinions of numerous Arab-Muslim intellectuals, as well as the codification of some of the Arab-Muslim states' Personal Status Laws (PSLs), and the debates among intellectuals along with the evidence they cite to justify their opinions. Chapters three and four are concerned specifically with debates among Moroccan intellectuals. They also include a discussion of the history of debate over the Moroccan Mudawwana from its initial publication in 1957 through the present day. The chapters discuss the opinions of Moroccan intellectuals regarding some of the Articles of the Mudawwana and show the evidence presented by each side both for and against reforming the Mudawwana. Chapters three and four also present the opinions of intellectuals voiced during personal interviews I conducted in 2013. These interviews show how complex the task of compartmentalizing the various Arab-Muslim intellectuals' opinions may be when seeking to label them either traditionalist or reformist with respect to their views on the rights of women in marriage.

This dissertation explores the changing role of material culture in the expression of identity, using the Philistine settlement at Tel Miqne-Ekron in the Iron I (12th-10th centuries BCE) as a test case. A diachronic analysis documenting strategies of maintenance and adaptation points to the transformation of materials from domestic tools to symbols of social status, which were used to define social boundaries and promote a distinct identity. This occurred in conjunction with the increasing strength of the Philistine presence in the southern Levant.My dissertation focuses on one excavation area, described as the 'elite' zone. I outlined two areas of investigation: the organization of space, and a spatial distribution of the artifact assemblage. Through this analysis, I reconstruct Buildings 351 and 350 as elite residences, and Buildings 353 and 354 as the loci of crafts activities. Furthermore, I suggest that activities associated with Buildings 351 and 350 included elite sponsored feasting, and argue that the interconnected construction of these buildings with Buildings 353 and 354 implies an integrated function.In the final part of my analysis, I interpret change over time by contextualizing the foreign, i.e. Philistine and local, i.e. Canaanite material culture assemblages as a means to investigate diachronic variation. My research demonstrates that the traditional focus on foreign origins has obscured our understanding of these objects by removing them from their local contexts. Developments included a shift in the role played by the Philistine pottery, from a domestic assemblage associated with an immigrant populations' adjustment of traditional methods of daily practices, to a fine-ware assemblage, where it was used to express a concept of elite identity. The model I propose views change as a reflexive process involving both group and individual interactions.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate variations of the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) curve number (CN) method for estimating near real-time runoff for naturalized flow, using high resolution radar rainfall data for watersheds in various agro-climatic regions of Texas. The CN method is an empirical method for calculating surface runoff which has been tested on various systems over a period of several years. Many of the findings of previous studies indicate the need to develop variations of this method to account for regional and seasonal changes in weather patterns and land cover that might affect runoff. This study seeks to address these issues, as well as the inherent spatial variability of rainfall, in order to develop a means of predicting runoff in near real-time for water resource management. In the past, raingauge networks have provided data for hydrologic models. However, these networks are generally unable to provide data in real-time or capture the spatial variability associated with rainfall. Radar networks, such as the Next Generation Weather Radar (NEXRAD) of the National Weather Service (NWS), which are widely available and continue to improve in quality and resolution, can accomplish these tasks. In general, a statistical comparison of the raingauge and NEXRAD data, where both were available, shows that the radar data is as representative of observed rainfall as raingauge data. In this study, watersheds of mostly homogenous land cover and naturalized flow were used as study areas. Findings indicate that the use of a dry antecedent moisture condition CN value and an initial abstraction (Ia) coefficient of 0.1 produced statistically significant results for eight out of the ten watersheds tested. The urban watershed used in this study produced more significant results with the use of the traditional 0.2 Ia coefficient. The predicted results before and during the growing season, in general, more closely agreed with the observed runoff than those after the growing season. The overall results can be further improved by altering the CN values to account for seasonal vegetation changes, conducting field verification of land cover condition, and using bias-corrected NEXRAD rainfall data.

The tobacco growing area is an important aspect for the consistency of cigarette aroma and the control of cigarette quality. The fragrance of tobacco leaves would be different for climates and planting environments, such as soil and rainfalls. Accurately discriminating tobacco growing areas is very important to maintain the specifications of cigarettes. In this thesis, the relationship between tobacco near-infrared (NIR) spectra and growing areas is studied. Soft computing models and statistical classifiers are established, and the performance of the developed classifiers are compared in the prediction accuracy and in evaluations derived from confusion matrix. An artificial neural network (ANN) classifier and a statistical model are firstly developed. The best prediction accuracy of ANN model reaches to 79.3% in 226 training samples and 78.7% in 66 testing samples, respectively, which are 2.2% and 4.5% higher than the best results of the conventional statistical model in training (77.1%) and in testing (74.2%), respectively. A support vector machine (SVM) model is proposed to investigate the characteristics of growing areas based on risk error minimum, and produces a higher classification accuracy than ANN model does, demonstrating the effectiveness and robustness of SVM model. In addition, a genetic algorithm (GA) optimized SVM (GA-SVM) model is proposed for taking the influence of the interaction of individual inputs on the performance of classifiers into account. With the application of GA, the sensitive input subset is identified and used to discrimination models. The simulation results demonstrate that the GA-SVM model has the best performance among the other developed models, and the model complexity is simplified, which is shown by requiring fewer inputs to achieve the equivalent prediction accuracy. The GA-SVM classifier is preferred for solving multi-category problems. / Prof. Simon X. Yang

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The application of visible/near-infrared hyper-spectral analysis to monitor the quality of frying oil and fried breaded chicken nuggets was investigated. / Partial least squares (PLS) calibration models were developed to predict the acid value, total polar components and viscosity of heated oils with different ratios of hydrogenation. Coefficient of determination (R2) and root mean square error (RMSE) were calculated to assess the performance of each model. Results of the study demonstrated good prediction ability of the calibration models for the quality parameters with R2 values of over 0.92. / The second study was based on developing calibration models for prediction of moisture and fat contents of fried breaded chicken nuggets with different levels of moisture and fat contents. Performing the same procedure for evaluation of the PLS calibration models, results of the study demonstrated that moisture and fat contents of fried breaded chicken nuggets could be predicted with R2 values of 0.92.