In this thesis, an output-only experimental modal testing and analysis technique known as the Natural Excitation Technique (NExT) is examined for use with large residential structures and interior cavities. The technique which assumes a random, stationary input causing the response data is reviewed and extended for the first time to include the assumption of an impulse input. This technique is examined with respect to the experimental modal analysis of single and two room residential structures. Each structure is first tested using conventional modal testing methods. Then, NExT is applied using each structure's response to a simulated sonic boom, an impulsive input. The results of these analyses along with the results obtained from a finite element model are compared. Then, the interior cavities enclosed by the residential structures are examined using NExT. Therefore, this thesis also demonstrates the successful use of NExT on acoustic systems for the first time. Three configurations of the interconnected cavities enclosed by the two room structure are considered to study physical phenomena. Both interior pressure response to random, stationary inputs and the sonic boom response are used with NExT to determine modal properties. The results of these analyses are compared to a theoretical analysis. Advantages to using NExT with both the response to a random, stationary input and an impulsive input are demonstrated for structural and acoustic systems. / Master of Science

The thesis is based on a long term ethnographic field research, that has been conducted by this work's author in one of the villages within the district of Svidník, Eastern- Slovakia. The work's fundamental frame of topic are the relations between the Roms and non-Roms in the observed village, with main focus put on the actor's perspective of the local Roms. The nature of such relations is observed both synchronuously and diachronously, and foremost in respect of two types of an areal mobility, that at the same time has the potential of a social-economic mobility. The first observed type is the flow of the Roms from the romani village to a non-Roms part of the village, or the surrounding villages; the second is the cross-border migration. At the same time the thesis addresses the relations within the observed Romani community whose internal social diferentiation is partially influenced by the very - successfully or unsuccessfully - implemented mobility. To hold a wider grip of the local relations, the author uses the texts of the Romani-studies expert, Milena Hübschmannová, other related case studies coming from the region of eastern Slovakia, and, paralelly, also the concepts of the postcolonial thinking with emphasis to Frantz Fanon's work. It is his very work that has provided the frame to...