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No description available.

The geologist James Hector (1834-1907) was, by any measure, the most important and influential scientist in nineteenth century New Zealand. In the mid 1860s, he became the first Director of the New Zealand Geological Survey and the Colonial Museum. Thereafter he ran the Colonial Laboratory, set up the Meteorological Service and the Wellington Botanical Gardens and was responsible for the establishment of the New Zealand Institute, acting as its manager and editor of its Transactions and Proceedings for more than 30 years. This work explores the formative years of his career from his early years in Scotland, his experiences with the Palliser Expedition in Canada, and pivotally, his first four years in New Zealand as the first Otago Provincial Geologist. By the time of James Hector�s entry as a medical student to Edinburgh University in 1852, he had already developed a strong interest in natural history, particularly geology. Although he graduated M.D. from Edinburgh in 1856, that course of study served only as a means of access to the natural sciences. Hector�s interest and training in geology developed at an opportune time, when there was increasing demand for geologists to explore the expanding industrial British Empire for coal and other mineral raw materials. Hector�s reputation in geology in Edinburgh brought him to the attention of that most influential British geologist, Sir Roderick Murchison, whose recommendation led to his appointment to the British North American Expedition of 1857 (the Palliser Expedition). Hector was acknowledged, on several counts, as a major contributor to the success of the expedition. When the Otago Provincial Government in New Zealand requested advice on the appointment of a geologist for the province, Murchison predictably proposed Hector. Having reviewed and assessed his work in North America, this thesis deals with the arrival of Hector as Otago Provincial Geologist in Dunedin during the prosperity of the gold rush of the early 1860s. For the first nine months he explored the central and eastern areas of the Province (Chapter 2) and the following year led the exploration of the West Coast, where there was potential for coal, gold and timber-and reputedly copper-and the prospect of providing a commercial route to Melbourne. The two month long expedition up the Matukituki Valley preceded the exploration by ship of the West Coast of the South Island as far north as Martins Bay. The latter became a major triumph on the strength of the contemporary perception of a route between Queenstown and Martins Bay potentially opening up a direct contact between Dunedin and Melbourne. From mid-1864, Hector�s life was governed by the organisation of the International Exhibition, which opened in Dunedin in January 1865. In that context, he travelled to seek support and participation from the other provinces of New Zealand, a political and administrative commission which he combined with geological exploration. After the closure of the successful Exhibition in May 1865 and subsequent to the conclusion of his appointment on 1st April 1865, Hector left Otago in August to take up the newly created post of Director of the New Zealand Geological Survey in Wellington. The parting was not administratively smooth and relations between Hector and the Otago Provincial Government were strained by the lack of a final, definitive, report on the Geology of Otago. An overview of Hector�s geology, specifically his interest in coal and gold, and the evolution of his views on the vexed question of the role of glaciers as geomorphologic agents is provided. James Hector was a man of versatile ability and strong leadership. His scientific skills as a field geologist and the administrative abilities, developed during his explorations in British North America and southern New Zealand, led ultimately to his long and successful career as New Zealand�s chief scientist at a formative time in its history.

Doctor of Philosophy / This thesis argues that the sixth book of Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur, the Tale of the Sangreal, introduces a new idea of chivalry to the knights of the Round Table and challenges them to reform how violence is justified in Arthurian society at the fundamental level. The central issue revolves around the knight’s intentions as they are confronted with situations of violence. In the Grail quest, each knight must demonstrate that he uses his knightly skills for the benefit of the community, not for his own purposes. By contrasting how knights justify violence in terms of Arthurian ideals, which privileges the use of violence for individual gain, with how knights justify violence in terms of Christian ideals, which privileges the use of violence to protect the community, this thesis demonstrates why Arthurian civilization collapsed as civil war engulfed the kingdom. Furthermore, the thesis shows how the Sangreal interacts with the rest of the Morte Darthur. It asks the knights to give up their worldly pretensions to honour and courtly privilege, and to reform their lives radically to comply with Christian ideals. This is achieved as the Grail journeys of the three Grail knights, Perceval, Bors, and Galahad, and the journey of Lancelot are examined closely, producing the spiritual biography of the knights. To demonstrate how far Arthurian civilization had moved from Christian ideals, the final chapter scrutinizes Arthur’s estrangement from God in the early years of his reign. These investigations make it evident that the Sangreal acts as a mirror for the Morte Darthur, proposing a better way of being within the chivalric world by closely analyzing the justification of violence within that world. This demonstrates that the collapse of Arthurian civilization is unavoidable.

Thesis (Ph. D.) University of Adelaide, Dept. of History, 1980.

Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 110-116). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1968. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis discusses the influence of consumption on masculinity beginning in the early modern period of the English Restoration through the twenty-first century. Specifically, this thesis investigates the male figures known as the gallant, the fop and the metrosexual, which are found in the Renaissance, Restoration and twenty-first century respectively. Each figure embodied his society's fears about the effect of consumerism on masculinity by openly wearing sumptuous clothing and practicing "effeminate" behavior. A product of the developing early consumer society, the gallant of the Renaissance was widely and harshly chastised for his dress and behavior. Because mass consumerism was so new in the early modern period, the gallant was able to utilize consumption to express social dissidence and to defy class and gender. Writers such as Thomas Dekker, Philip Stubbes and Barnabe Riche rejected the gallant, but their rejection only served to fuel his subversive behavior. The fop built upon the foundation laid by the gallant and found wider acceptance in the Restoration despite the fact he was still mocked by Restoration society. The fop embodied the specific changes in consumption in the Restoration such as a greater influx of international trade through an excessive adoption of French dress and behavior. I first define the fop through George Etherege's Man of Mode. Then, by comparing William Wycherley's The Country Wife to William Shakespeare's All's Well that End's Well, I distinguish the fop's reception in the Restoration from the gallant's in the Renaissance. The metrosexual was the culmination of the impact of five hundred years of consumerism upon masculinity, and as such did not face rejection by society. Instead, metrosexuality embodies the pervasiveness of consumer-mediated masculinity in the twenty-first century. While some members of contemporary society still struggle to recognize the performative nature of gender identity, instead choosing to cling to the notion that masculinity is in "crisis," the metrosexual openly embraces gender performativity by consuming different products in order to maintain his male gender identity. As a result of metrosexuality masculinity is subsumed under consumerism and all forms of male identity become products to be purchased at will. Chuck Palahniuk tries to envision a world wherein consumerism no longer has any influence over masculinity in Fight Club, but he is ultimately unable to break masculinity away from consumerism because of the powerful bond that had been formed over a half a millennia. Ultimately masculinity is found to be dependent upon consumption, and the days when the male identity could exist apart from consumerism have long since departed. The gallant, the fop and the metrosexual each faced individual challenges, but in the end demonstrate the unbreakable and subversive bond between consumerism and masculinity.

abstract: The purpose of information source detection problem (or called rumor source detection) is to identify the source of information diffusion in networks based on available observations like the states of the nodes and the timestamps at which nodes adopted the information (or called infected). The solution of the problem can be used to answer a wide range of important questions in epidemiology, computer network security, etc. This dissertation studies the fundamental theory and the design of efficient and robust algorithms for the information source detection problem. For tree networks, the maximum a posterior (MAP) estimator of the information source is derived under the independent cascades (IC) model with a complete snapshot and a Short-Fat Tree (SFT) algorithm is proposed for general networks based on the MAP estimator. Furthermore, the following possibility and impossibility results are established on the Erdos-Renyi (ER) random graph: $(i)$ when the infection duration $<\frac{2}{3}t_u,$ SFT identifies the source with probability one asymptotically, where $t_u=\left\lceil\frac{\log n}{\log \mu}\right\rceil+2$ and $\mu$ is the average node degree, $(ii)$ when the infection duration $>t_u,$ the probability of identifying the source approaches zero asymptotically under any algorithm; and $(iii)$ when infection duration $<t_u,$ the breadth-first search (BFS) tree starting from the source is a fat tree. Numerical experiments on tree networks, the ER random graphs and real world networks show that the SFT algorithm outperforms existing algorithms. In practice, other than the nodes' states, side information like partial timestamps may also be available. Such information provides important insights of the diffusion process. To utilize the partial timestamps, the information source detection problem is formulated as a ranking problem on graphs and two ranking algorithms, cost-based ranking (CR) and tree-based ranking (TR), are proposed. Extensive experimental evaluations of synthetic data of different diffusion models and real world data demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of CR and TR compared with existing algorithms. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Electrical Engineering 2015

Informe de Seminario para optar al grado de Licenciado en Filosofía / El presente trabajo plantea como hipótesis que las matemáticas aplicadas a la formulación y desarrollo de los enunciados de ley en la física clásica realizan una contribución pragmática por medio de sus distintos roles metodológicos. Estos últimos son entendidos como aquellos roles que permiten establecer y determinar las relaciones inter- e intra-teóricas entre los distintos enunciados de ley. En este sentido, se plantea como objetivo general analizar críticamente la contribución de las matemáticas aplicadas para la construcción y desarrollo de las estructuras de las leyes fundamentales de la física clásica. Para abordar este objetivo, se plantean los siguientes tres objetivos específicos: (1) analizar la contribución de los roles metodológicos de las matemáticas aplicadas en la formulación de los enunciados de ley; (2) analizar la metodología aplicada en la práctica científica para la formulación de estos enunciados; y (3) analizar los puntos anteriores en un caso de estudio correspondiente a las leyes dinámicas de Newton presentadas en su Philosophiea naturalis principia mathematica (1687). Este trabajo se estructura en tres capítulos. En el primero se analiza la contribución del rol metodológico de las matemáticas aplicadas en la formulación y desarrollo de los enunciados de ley de la física clásica, en términos de su relación con otros roles, el carácter instrumental de las matemáticas, la versatilidad de aplicación de las mismas y la validez de estas por medio de la invariancia. En el segundo capítulo se analiza la metodología utilizada en las matemáticas y cómo se utiliza tal metodología en las ciencias, en particular cómo es utilizada en la práctica científica para la formulación de las leyes. En el tercer capítulo se analiza los resultados de los capítulos precedentes, teniendo a la vista la formulación de las leyes de Newton, en términos de la metodología utilizada, los fundamentos para establecer los conceptos físicos fundamentales y la formulación y desarrollo de las leyes dinámicas. Los resultados arrojan que, (i) dada las herramientas de razonamiento que ofrecen las matemáticas para formular estructuras, que permiten inferir las consecuencias de las leyes y descubrir las conexiones entre distintas estructuras matemáticas; y (ii) dada las herramientas formales de estas, las cuales proporcionan una amplia variedad de conceptos para representar y cuantificar entidades físicas, permiten inferir las conexiones entre leyes y otras estructuras matemáticas; permiten concluir que las matemáticas realizan una contribución de carácter pragmático, tanto en la formulación de los enunciados de ley en la física clásica como en la deducción de otras leyes. En efecto, la variedad de herramientas ofrecidas por las matemáticas se adecúa a diversos contextos de investigación en la práctica científica. Esta misma contribución, a su vez, permite realizar una jerarquización formal de las leyes en términos de la deducción de leyes (generando niveles), por medio de matemáticas complejas, y de la robustez de las mismas. Además, se muestra cómo el método axiomático de las matemáticas contribuye en la formulación de los enunciados de ley, puesto que la axiomatización semi-formal utilizado en la práctica científica permite formular de manera consistente los conceptos y axiomas físicos, establecer las relaciones pertinentes entre estos y deducir las consecuencias de estos axiomas. Esta contribución del método axiomático es pragmática debido a que la caracteriza como una axiomatización débil pragmática. La aplicación de estos resultados se puede apreciar en la formulación y desarrollo de las tres leyes dinámicas que formuló Newton en sus Principia. En efecto, Newton al formular estas leyes se guía por una metodología que le permite precisar sus dos conceptos físicos claves, a saber, la masa y la fuerza, y establecer correlaciones entre estos, y, en base a esto, generar distintas estructuras matemáticas. Además, se aprecia cómo el rol metodológico contribuye a demostrar cómo las tres leyes de Newton se relacionan con la ley de Galileo y las leyes de Kepler. En síntesis, los resultados de este trabajo permiten dar cuenta que las matemáticas aplicadas contribuyen de manera pragmática en la formulación y desarrollo de los enunciados de ley en la física clásica, puesto que el rol metodológico de estas es un rol de carácter pragmático.