Yes / The magnetic analysis of material from the Ness of Brodgar has formed part of the research programme at the site, with annual collection of samples, since 2012.1 Primarily concerned with dating and with the refinement of site chronologies, magnetic analysis is also being used to address questions regarding the nature of resource exploitation and the use of space within buildings. This chapter presents the results of the research undertaken so far and highlights the areas that are likely to prove informative in future.

Quando um sistema quântico é acoplado à diversos banhos térmicos de diferentes temperaturas, eventualmente um estado estacionário fora do equilíbrio (NESS), caracterizado por correntes internas de calor é atingido. Por um lado, essas correntes são responsáveis por causar decoerência e produzir entropia no sistema. Entretanto, sua existência também induz correlações entre diferentes partes do sistema. Neste trabalho, nós exploramos este duplo aspecto dos NESSs. Usando técnicas do espaço de fase nós calculamos a produção de entropia de Wigner em redes lineares harmônicas. Trabalhando no célebre limite de fraco acoplamento interno e dissipativo, nós obtivemos expressões simples e frechadas para a contribuição de cada corrente de quasi-probabilidade na entropia. Nossa análise também mostra que, a dinâmica interna (reversével) é exclusivamente responsável em manter a produção de entropia (irreversível) estacionária. Considerando um ponto de vista informacional, nós trabalhamos no problema de como quantificar a informação compartilhada entre partes desconexas de uma cadeia quântica em um estado estacionário fora do equilíbrio. Nós mostramos então que esta é mais precisamente caracterizada utilizando a informação mútua condicional (CMI), um quantificador mais geral de correlações tripartites do que a usual informação mútua. Como aplicação, nós utilizamos o paradigmático problema da transferência de energia em uma cadeia de osciladores sujeita a banhos internos auto-consistentes, que podem ser usados para mudar de um transporte balístico para difusivo. Nós encontramos que a produção de entropia escala com diferentes leis de potência nos regimes balístico e difusivo, permitindo então quantificar o \'\'custo entrópico da difusividade\'\'. Nós também computamos a CMI para cadeias de diversos tamanhos e assim encontramos leis de escala relacionando a informação compartilhada com a difusividade. Finalmente nós discutimos como esta nova perspectiva na caracterização de sistemas fora do equilíbrio pode ser aplicada para entender o problema de equilibração local em estados fora do equilíbrio. / When a quantum system is coupled to several heat baths at different temperatures, it eventually reaches a non-equilibrium steady state (NESS) featuring stationary internal heat currents. From one side, these currents are responsible to cause decorehence and produce entropy in the system. However, their existence also induce correlations between different parts of the system. In this work, we explore this two-folded aspect of NESSs. Using phase-space techniques we calculate the Wigner entropy production on general linear networks of harmonic nodes. Working in the ubiquitous limit of weak internal coupling and weak dissipation, we obtain simple closed-form expressions for the entropic contribution of each individual quasi-probability current. Our analysis also shows that, it is exclusively the (reversible) internal dynamics which maintain the stationary (irreversible) entropy production. From the informational point of view, we address how to quantify the amount of information that disconnected parts of a quantum chain share in a non-equilibrium steady-state. As we show, this is more precisely captured by the conditional mutual information (CMI), a more general quantifier of tripartite correlations than the usual mutual information. As an application, we apply our framework to the paradigmatic problem of energy transfer through a chain of oscillators subject to self-consistent internal baths that can be used to tune the transport from ballistic to diffusive. We find that the entropy production scales with different power law behaviors in the ballistic and diffusive regimes, hence allowing us to quantify what is the \'\'entropic cost of diffusivity\'\'. We also compute the CMI for arbitrary sizes and thus find the scaling rules connecting information sharing and diffusivity. Finally, we discuss how this new perspective in the characterization of non-equilibrium systems may be applied to understand the issue of local equilibration in non-equilibrium states.

Although understanding causation is an essential part of nearly every problem domain, it has resisted formal treatment in the languages of logic, probability, and even statistics. Autonomous artificially intelligent agents need to be able to reason about cause and effect. One approach is to provide the agent with formal, computational notions of causality that enable the agent to deduce cause and effect relationships from observations. During the 1990s, formal notions of causality were pursued within the AI community by many researchers, notably by Judea Pearl. Pearl developed the formal language of structural models for reasoning about causation. Among the problems he addressed in this formalism was a problem common to both AI and law, the attribution of causal responsibility or actual causation. Pearl and then Halpern and Pearl developed formal definitions of actual causation in the language of structural models. <p>Within the law, the traditional test for attributing causal responsibility is the counterfactual "but-for" test, which asks whether, but for the defendant's wrongful act, the injury complained of would have occurred. This definition conforms to common intuitions regarding causation in most cases, but gives non-intuitive results in more complex situations where two or more potential causes are present. To handle such situations, Richard Wright defined the NESS Test. Pearl claims that the structural language is an appropriate language to capture the intuitions that motivate the NESS test. While Pearl's structural language is adequate to formalize the NESS test, a recent result of Hopkins and Pearl shows that the Halpern and Pearl definition fails to do so, and this thesis develops an alternative structural definition to formalize the NESS test.

Although understanding causation is an essential part of nearly every problem domain, it has resisted formal treatment in the languages of logic, probability, and even statistics. Autonomous artificially intelligent agents need to be able to reason about cause and effect. One approach is to provide the agent with formal, computational notions of causality that enable the agent to deduce cause and effect relationships from observations. During the 1990s, formal notions of causality were pursued within the AI community by many researchers, notably by Judea Pearl. Pearl developed the formal language of structural models for reasoning about causation. Among the problems he addressed in this formalism was a problem common to both AI and law, the attribution of causal responsibility or actual causation. Pearl and then Halpern and Pearl developed formal definitions of actual causation in the language of structural models. <p>Within the law, the traditional test for attributing causal responsibility is the counterfactual "but-for" test, which asks whether, but for the defendant's wrongful act, the injury complained of would have occurred. This definition conforms to common intuitions regarding causation in most cases, but gives non-intuitive results in more complex situations where two or more potential causes are present. To handle such situations, Richard Wright defined the NESS Test. Pearl claims that the structural language is an appropriate language to capture the intuitions that motivate the NESS test. While Pearl's structural language is adequate to formalize the NESS test, a recent result of Hopkins and Pearl shows that the Halpern and Pearl definition fails to do so, and this thesis develops an alternative structural definition to formalize the NESS test.

The purpose of this research was to modify an existing scale to measure retail service quality in a college shop. This scale was modified based on the retail service quality scale (RSQS) to make it more contexts specific and culturally sensitive for the retail college shop (Al Waha) at Dubai Women‘s College. It also explores the relationship between the new retail service quality dimensions and overall service quality, satisfaction, loyalty and frequency of visits. A total of 424 completed questionnaires obtained from Al Waha customers was used in the analysis for the main study. Principal component analysis was used for scale reduction and multiple regression analysis was used to find associations. The new modified scale (Al Waha scale) resulted in 22 items across four dimensions: interaction quality, physical aspects, policy and understanding and caring which is a new dimension. The results confirm the association between the four new service quality dimensions and overall service quality, satisfaction, loyalty and frequency of visits. The results disclose the importance of age when evaluating physical aspects and caring and commitment dimensions. The study was performed among a very specific demographic sample; generalizations could only be made to similar college shops. Therefore, testing the modified model in other shops outside of the colleges is an area for future research. By modifying the RSQS scale to be context specific to retail shops in Dubai, this study provides an incremental step towards other scales in the region. This reveals that there are associations between Al Waha scale dimensions and overall service quality, satisfaction, loyalty and frequency of visits. Also, it indicated the importance of age when customers‘ evaluate physical aspects and caring and commitment dimensions. This scale gives managers a tool to improve service quality at their shops in order to become more competitive.

Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Master of Science / Department of Geology / Matthew W. Totten / Ness County, Kansas is situated along the western flank of the Central Kansas uplift, and has been an active center of oil exploration since the 1920’s. It currently ranks fourth among Kansas counties in oil production, largely from Mississippian-age carbonate reservoirs. Some production has been realized from lower Pennsylvanian-age carbonate formations, although the distribution of these reservoirs appears sporadic. The goals of this study were to develop an exploration model that predicts the development of reservoir conditions within the Marmatonage Fort Scott Limestone. A two-township area was studied to examine relationships between production rates and subsurface variations. No core was available through the Fort Scott, hence drill cuttings were thin-sectioned and examined under a petrographic microscope to see details of porosity type not easily visible under a binocular microscope. Production appears to be defined by stratigraphic variations in porosity controlled by original depositional environment. The best wells are within an oolitic limestone, with subsequent development of secondary, vuggy porosity. These conditions occur in bands along the Mississippian paleo-topographic highs. I interpret these bands to be ancient ooid shoals, with geometries and scales analogous to those previously reported from Lansing/Kansas City reservoirs in Russell County, Kansas. This study provides insights into production trends within the Fort Scott Limestone, and should be included during exploration in Ness County, Kansas.

This research introduced a geological perspective into an archaeological setting, the Ness of Brodgar, a Middle to Late Neolithic site in the West Mainland of Orkney. Discovered in 2003, the site is located on an isthmus of land between two lochs and is equidistant between the Ring of Brodgar and the Stones of Stenness stone circles. The site consists of more than two dozen drystone buildings encircled by a massive wall. To date, ten per cent of the site has been excavated. This research established a systematic framework of protocols and procedures for the recovery, macro geological assessment and identification of the rock and mineral species in the non-tool, non-structural rocks, termed Foreign Stone for this research. Once identified, the frequency and distribution of the rock in the Foreign Stone finds were calculated, providing a geological basis for understanding any patterns of rock choice across the site. Integrated into a more conventional archaeological study of the Worked Stone artefacts was a systematic macro petrological analysis of these finds. Additionally, selected segments of the interior drystone walling were assessed to identify the rock in the various members. These petrologic analyses combined to provide insight into the range of rocks transported to and utilized within the site. Comparative analysis of the data from all three aspects, Foreign Stone, Worked stone and walling, was undertaken to identify trends in frequencies and patterns of use of the various rock species. Archival and more current information on the petrologic resources available within Orkney were synthesized in a gazetteer identifying the location(s) of rock outcrops and deposits. This permitted the source location(s) of many of the rocks from the Ness of Brodgar to be identified.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The argument of this dissertation calls for an abiding by missing-ness as it relates to apartheid-era disappearances. I am concerned with the ways in which the category missing is articulated in histories of apartheid-era disappearances through histories seeking to account for apartheid and how that category is enabled and /or constrained through mediating practices, processes and discourses such as that of forensics and history itself. My deployment of a notion of missing-ness therefore is put to work in underscoring notions of history and its relation to a category of missing persons in South Africa as they emerge and are figured through various discursive strategies constituted by and through apartheid’s violence and iterations thereof. I focus specifically on the enforced disappearances of Siphiwo Mthimkulu, Tobekile ‘Topsy’ Madaka and Sizwe Kondile and the vicarious ways in which they have been produced and (re)figured in a postapartheid present. Mthimkulu and Madaka were abducted, tortured, interrogated, killed and their bodies disposed through burning by apartheid’s security police in 1982. In 2007 South Africa’s Missing Persons Task Team exhumed commingled burnt human fragments at a farm, Post Chalmers. After two years of forensic examinations, those remains were identified as most likely those of Mthimkulu and Madaka. Their commingled remains were reburied in 2009 during an official government sanctioned Provincial re-burial. Kondile was similarly abducted in 1981 and after being imprisoned, tortured, interrogated and killed, his physical remains were burnt. The MPTT has been unsuccessful in locating and thus exhuming his remains for re-burial. Sizwe Kondile remains missing. Missing-ness as I evoke it serves to signal the lack and excess as potentiality and instability of histories accounting for the condition and symptom of being missing. The productivity of deploying missing-ness and an abidance to it in the ways I argue is precisely in not explicitly naming it, but rather by holding onto its elusiveness by marking the contours of discourses on absence-presence, those which it simultaneously touches upon and is constitutive of. Articulating it thus is to affirm missing-ness as a question that I argue, be put to work and abided by.

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