While the origin of the Arab Spring is well documented in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria, the role of press photography in presenting these conflicts is not. Images taken during a conflict often follow a particular narrative that comes to define how we remember a conflict. Considering that Syria is composed of a heterogeneous, ethno-religious mix located at the center of intense regional and international rivalries, understanding the cause of the uprising and the trajectory of the conflict require a careful study of the socio-political history of Syria as well as her regional and international relations. The aim of this study is to demonstrate how photographs taken of the Syrian Civil War that earned critical acclaim from photographic institutions mythologize the war. Semiotics provides a template for the interpretation of images that may be related to the underlying cultural forces shaping the conflict. Myth provides the forms in the presentation of archetypes in the images that we are able to readily identify so rendering the images relevant and recognizable to the viewer. The mythologizing of images of war has been used since Frank Capa created an “aesthetic ideal” during the Spanish Civil War and been re-appropriated during subsequent conflicts of the 20th and 21st centuries especially the Gulf Wars of 1991 and 2003. This study uses a semiotic and mythological approach to analyze the winning photographs as selected by the National Press Photographers Association, World Press Photographers Association and Pulitzer Prize awarded during the course of the Syrian conflict. The myths of the “victim” and “underdog” were the two most commonly applied myths to the civilians and the Syrian rebels, who were portrayed as the “lovable losers” in the conflict. These narratives differ from previous depictions of the two previous Gulf Wars in their empathetic depiction of the civilian population and of the rebels. If maintaining the status quo is one of the enduring functions of myth then the underdog myth perpetuates voyeuristic participation in the conflict without requiring the discomfort of the removal of the Assad regime.

Scholars often argue that republican government works because elected representatives adopt policies favored by their constituents. Theoretically, this relationship is stronger with morality issues because such issues are technically simple, involve core values, and thus foster greater levels of citizen engagement. Since the U.S. Supreme Court cases of Casey and Webster, state legislatures have passed hundreds of policies that place cumulatively significant restrictions on women's access to abortion. The increasingly conservative nature of abortion policy might indicate an increasingly conservative electorate, but public opinion on abortion has remained stable since the 1970s with most Americans favoring legal abortion with some restrictions. This is the motivating question of my dissertation - why are states increasing abortion restrictions in the absence of public demand? Previous research on abortion policy in the states has generally focused on specific policies at specific years. Studying a single policy at discrete moments in time carries an implicit assumption that the determinants of policy are constant. In order to better state abortion conservatism, I comprehensively examine the formation of state abortion policy in the different stages of policymaking, across policy types, and over time. I find that the stages of the policy making process invokes different incentives for legislators, and as a result, the determinants of abortion policy at each stage of policymaking are different. Despite obvious differences across policy stages, I find a common theme: legislators create abortion policy in strategic ways, at the margins of the policy making arena, and excluding the preferences of the mass public. In the first empirical chapter, I focus on the agenda setting stage of policy making. Using an original dataset of all abortion-related bills introduced in the states from 2000-2010, I find that the predictors of sponsorship varies across legislator gender and party types. Additionally, I find that the effect of citizen ideology and interest group contributions varies across legislators. In the second empirical chapter, I study the diffusion of nearly 40 pro- and anti-abortion rights policies across the states. I establish a set of average predictors of state policy adoption and show how the effect of partisan actors varies across the policies. In the final empirical chapter, I develop a theory of bureaucratic activism. I use the cases of telemedicine abortion bans in Iowa, insurance bans in Georgia, and clinic regulations in Virginia to show how state bureaucracies take advantage of the broad authority granted to them to enact policy change unprompted by the legislature.

The rapid development of furniture design has changed people's lifestyle. Nowadays, customers have multiple choices of choosing products in the market. To immediately attract viewers' attention becomes the increasing challenge among designers and manufacturers. Making “fun” design is one of the strategies that could appeal customers. The topic of this thesis is to discuss the importance of combining “fun” characters to furniture design to create a strong first impression to customers. Nowadays, Human centered design (HCD) has become a trendy concept to designers. Based on this concept, I researched and designed a set of furniture, including a chair, a coat rack, two stackable stools and a coffee table. The thesis is mainly analyzing this furniture series that the way the “fun” elements are combined in its design. This set furniture is made of Bamboo plywood and Nylon rope, which are environmentally friendly materials. Moreover, Computer Numerical Control (CNC) technology, ergonomic and 3D printing technology are utilized to produce these products. Each piece of furniture includes a unique “fun” character, which can reinforce customers' first impression when they see these designs. The furniture series is designed based on functional and aesthetic aspects. I will also illustrate the way to achieve these two aspects by utilizing different material, form, and ergonomics.

A self-analysis of the work of a theater director on the play Arcadia, by Tom Stoppard. Through a detailed retelling of all aspects of the production—research, design, script work, rehearsals, and performance—artist strengths and weaknesses are identified, and lessons are articulated that can be applied to future productions of Arcadia, and subsequent work of the director.

Using myth, media memory, and boundary work as the theoretical underpinnings, this research aims to understand how journalists manipulated meanings assigned to a single subject over a long period of time. The research explores how journalists shaped and reshaped former Penn State University football coach Joe Paterno, and how journalists imprinted evolving cultural values on Paterno. As “what matters” within a culture shifts, the journalistic narrative of authority figures and heroes shifts along with it to reflect new or emerging cultural values. The research also examined what happens to a profession when it faces severe structural unrest. In this case, disruption to the Paterno narrative was caused by new technologies that increased access to the profession. To accomplish these research goals, the researcher employed qualitative and historical research methods, including archival research, textual analysis of newspaper, magazine, and online articles, and a critical historical analysis that allowed for input from multiple paradigms. The examination of shifting, long-term journalistic narrative matters because it helps us understand how cultures respond and adapt to gradual changes in values or sudden moments of public trauma. This research also offers journalism professionals insights into how new technologies affect industrial structures.

The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between socioeconomic status and mental health-related quality of life in a micropolitan community in Iowa and to determine the effect of neighborhood social cohesion, neighborhood violence, and unfair treatment on this relationship. I hypothesized that socioeconomic status would be correlated with mental health quality of life, such that those of low or middle socioeconomic status would have greater odds of reporting poor mental health quality of life than those of high socioeconomic status. Furthermore, I hypothesized that lower perceived neighborhood social cohesion, having reported neighborhood violence in the past six months, and having reported an experience of unfair treatment in the past six months would be associated with being of low socioeconomic status. I then explored which of these factors are the best predictors of poor mental health quality of life when considered together. The study is a secondary data analysis of health information gathered from a large, random-digit dial telephone survey of residents of Ottumwa, Iowa. To address the research questions, responses from a total of 1079 surveys were analyzed. Participants were clustered into three socioeconomic status groupings based on the following factors: annual household income, highest level of education completed, current work status, whether the respondent owned or rented their home, and whether the respondent's household fell at or below 125 percent of the Federal Poverty Level. Mental health quality of life was measured using questions from the CDC's Healthy Days Measure that specifically ask about mental health. Bivariate relationships between variables were calculated utilizing chi-square tests of independence. A series of logistic regression models were then conducted to further explore these relationships. Results showed that those belonging to the low socioeconomic status group had about four times the odds of reporting poor mental health quality of life than those in the high socioeconomic status group. The relationship did not hold true for those in the middle socioeconomic status group, as they had similar odds of reporting poor mental health quality of life than those in the high socioeconomic status group. Results also showed that neighborhood violence, low neighborhood social cohesion, and experiencing unfair treatment were also independently associated with reporting poor mental health quality of life as well as being of low socioeconomic status. Results of the logistic regression model containing the social and neighborhood factors showed that neighborhood social cohesion and perceived unfair treatment were significantly associated with greater odds of reporting poor mental health quality of life. These relationships remained after including demographic co-variates in the model. Low socioeconomic status, lower neighborhood social cohesion, and reporting experience of unfair treatment significantly predicted greater odds of reporting poor mental health quality of life. These results should be interpreted with caution, as data was cross-sectional and inferences about causality cannot be made. Further research investigating the possible causal pathway underlying this relationship is needed.

We study the sl(3) web algebra via morphisms on foams. A pre-foam is a cobordism between two webs that contains singular arcs, which are sets of points whose neighborhoods are homeomorphic to the cross-product of the letter "Y'' and the unit interval. Pre-foams may have a distinguished point, and it can be moved around as long as it does not cross a singular arc. A foam is an isotopy class of pre-foams modulo a set of certain relations involving dots on the pre-foams. Composition in Foams is achieved by stacking pre-foams. We compute the cohomology ring of the sl(3) web algebra and apply a functor from the cohomology ring of the sl(3) web algebra to {\bf Foams}. Afterwards, we use this to study the $\mathfrak{sl}(3)$ web algebra via morphisms on foams.

Thomas Pasatieri is a prolific American composer of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Although Pasatieri is best known as an opera composer, he has composed in many different genres, and his numerous art songs have often been overlooked. This study evaluates Pasatieri's currently published song catalog and divides it into three groups of songs that correspond to the varying pedagogical needs of students. The first group presented in this document addresses the needs of the beginning vocal student. The songs are harmonically tonal, textually accessible, rhythmically uncomplicated, and metrically stable. The second group is more appropriate for the intermediate singer. The songs are highly chromatic and their harmonic progressions do not necessarily follow the rules of functional tonality; the texts are longer and more complex, the rhythmic and metric content are likewise more difficult, and the melodies are more disjunct, often exploring the extremes of the vocal range. The third and final group is most suitable for the advanced singer. The harmonies are challenging and explore an array of organizations, the texts are esoteric, the melodies are often unified through recurring motivic gestures, and the songs rarely contain any formal repetition. These groupings are intended to help teachers and students choose repertoire from Pasatieri's oeuvre that suit each individual student. This study includes a discussion of representative songs from each group within the chapters and a catalogue of all of Pasatieri's published songs arranged by group in the appendices.

Riser sleeve thermophysical properties for simulation are developed using an inverse modeling technique. Casting experiments using riser sleeves are performed in order to measure temperatures in the liquid steel, the riser sleeve, and the sand mold. Simulations are created and designed to replicate the casting experiments. Riser sleeve material thermophysical properties are iteratively modified until agreement is achieved between the simulation and the measured data. Analyses of sleeve material performance are carried out using the developed thermophysical properties. The modulus extension factor (MEF) is used to quantify sleeve performance and is determined for all riser sleeve materials studied here. Values are found to range from 1.07 to 1.27. A sleeve material's effects on casting yield are shown to depend only on the MEF and therefore a sleeve's exothermic or insulating properties serve only to increase the overall quality of the sleeve, expressed by the MEF, and do not independently affect the casting yield at any casting size studied here. The use of riser sleeves is shown to increase the maximum yield up to 40% for chunky castings, however increases of only 8% are observed for very rangy castings. Riser sleeve thickness is shown to be extremely influential on casting yield. Scaling the sleeve thickness by the riser diameter shows that, for a typical sleeve, an optimum riser sleeve thickness is 0.2 times the riser diameter for chunky castings. A scaled sleeve thickness of 0.1 is found to be an optimum sleeve thickness for very rangy castings. Below a scaled sleeve thickness of 0.1 sleeve performance is found to be highly sub-optimal.

The overarching objective of this study is to assess the effectiveness and performance of ATIs. In doing so, this research provides a fundamental understanding of the flow and sediment propagation through a different combination of porous media (pea gravel and woodchips). The research hypothesizes that the theory of advection and diffusion describes the migration of flow and identifies a myriad of depositional networks of sediment. A key hypothesis of the study is that global and local pressure differentiation affects the flow pathways and distribution with intimate effects of sediment trapping efficiency and distribution within the permeameter. A significant goal of this study is to decompose the key mechanisms that affect this migration of sediment under a fixed value for the head and incoming concentration. The nature of the study is experimental and is supported by limited numerical and field analysis. Although the experimental setup is site specific to the conditions encountered in the study location, it offers a generic way of examining flow and sediment intrusion within a permeable bed. The study in that sense hypothesizes that the intrusion by Einstein is valid and it shows the change in the hydraulic gradient that occurs during an event and during a sequence of events. A secondary goal of this research is to understand the cyclicity in the migration of sediment in a sequence of different events, where the initial conditions of each run constitutes the outcome of the final result of the previous runs. The nature of those experiments is to mimic the occurrence of sequential events in nature, although the continuous examined in the laboratory as reflective of conditions representing extreme runs. This research also treats the hydraulic conductivity as a dynamic entity to reflect the effect of localized clogging on the propagation of flow. The experimental design of this research considers a series of experimental runs to address the aforementioned objectives of this research and test the posed hypothesis.