The Politics of Laughter in Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso" and Cervantes' "Don Quixote"
Year of Dissertation:
2010
Program:
Comparative Literature
Abstract
NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF MULTIPHASE FLOWS IN MICROCHANNELS USING THE LATTICE BOLTZMANN METHOD
Year of Dissertation:
2010
Dynamics of multiphase systems in micro-fluidic devices is a topic of great interest in many industrial applications such as chemical synthesis, DNA analysis, enhanced micromixing, and power generation. Due to the small transverse dimensions, microchannels provide a great surface to volume ratio, offering an enhanced heat and transfer efficiency. In addition, they provide a great alternative for many chemical reactions by minimizing the amount of reactants needed. Different from large scale channels, bubbles can create significant problems in micro-fluidic devices by altering or blocking the flow. On the other hand, controllable addition of bubbles is desired to improve mixing and heat transfer in microsystems. Therefore it is important to understand clearly the dynamic behavior of multiphase systems, from the point of formation to transport along the microchannel. Bubble formation dynamics is governed by the set-up geometry and ratio between interfacial and viscous forces in the system. Multiphase flow transport along microchannel is determined by wall surface wettability, initial fluid conditions, and velocities. A stable Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) based on the Cahn-Hilliard diffuse interface approach is used for the simulation of bubble formation and motion along the microchannel. Initial validation of the model is presented for the dynamics of a single bubble rising in unconfined and confined domains.
Clinical Nurse Faculty and the Lived Experience of Clinical Grading
Author:
Bernadette Amicucci
Year of Dissertation:
2011
Advisor:
Keville Frederickson
Clinical grading is one approach to assure that future nurses have the knowledge and skills to provide safe patient care. The phenomenon being explored for this study was the experience of clinical grading for clinical nurse faculty. Through the use of a qualitative phenomenological method, the lived experience of grading nursing student clinical performance for experienced clinical nurse faculty in pre-licensure programs is described. Eleven full-time nursing faculty were recruited using a purposive technique to obtain a convenience sample. Each participant first underwent an initial in-depth personal interview followed by a brief follow-up interview a few weeks later. The van Manen method of hermeneutic phenomenology was applied to describe and interpret the data while developing an understanding of the experience for the participants. Findings from this study revealed five essential themes. These essential themes were collated to form a textual interpretive statement which illuminated the meaning of the experience of clinical grading for the participants. Barrett's theory of Power as Knowing Participation in Change emerged as one way to reflect on the findings in a way that was meaningful to nursing. Recommendations for future research and implications for nursing are identified.
OPTICAL ALGORITHMS FOR ASSESSMENT OF FLUORESCENCE SOURCES IN SEA WATERS
Year of Dissertation:
2009
An optical algorithm, hereinafter called the Red Band Difference (RBD), is proposed and tested using sun induced chlorophyll fluorescence as the primary tool for the detection of relatively low backscattering phytoplankton blooms from space. The RBD technique is found to have potential for improving identification of blooms and their location compared to other algorithms. Since Karenia brevis (K. brevis) blooms are of great interest and have been commonly reported throughout the Gulf of Mexico, I also propose a K. brevis bloom classification algorithm, hereinafter called the K. brevis Bloom Index (KBBI). The KBBI technique is primarily based on the fact that total particulate backscattering associated with K. brevis bloom is different and much lower than that for non-K. brevis blooms. Since K. brevis bloomed water is known to have lower particulate backscattering than the non-K. brevis bloomed waters, the water-leaving radiance signal is much weaker for K. brevis blooms. As a consequence, the KBBI index becomes much larger for K. brevis blooms than for non-K. brevis blooms, thus permitting their distinction. The RBD and KBBI algorithms are capable of detecting relatively low backscattering blooms and classifying K. brevis blooms respectively from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) ocean color measurements. To assess the efficacy of the detection and classification algorithms, simulations, including chlorophyll fluorescence (assuming 0.75% quantum yield) based on the K. brevis and non-K. brevis blooms conditions were performed and thresholds were determined. The approaches were applied to well documented blooms of K. brevis in the Gulf of Mexico and results were compared to other detection techniques such as Fluorescence Line Height (FLH). The application of the RBD was extended to test capabilities for detecting various toxic dinoflagellates blooms around the world. An analysis of impacts of the atmospheric corrections was performed on both of the algorithms.
The diet and foraging ecology of gray seals, Halichoerus grypus, in United States waters
Year of Dissertation:
2009
Once extinct in U.S. waters, there are now more than 7,000 gray seals (Halichoerus grypus) that breed and forage in the waters of Maine and Massachusetts. This is the first long-term study of the diet and foraging behavior of this species in its U.S. range. I used hard parts in 305 seal scats and 49 stomachs, and fatty acid profiles in 45 seal blubber cores, to 1) reconstruct the diet of gray seals in U.S. waters, and 2) investigate regional, temporal, and intraspecific variation in the diet. I compared species in the diet with those most abundant in the seals' range, as measured by bottom trawl surveys. I analyzed the tracks of 6 satellite-tagged seals, and asked which prey species were most abundant in areas where foraging activity occurred. I recovered a total of 3,798 otoliths, and 7,005 prey individuals from 34 prey taxa. Sand lance (Ammodytes spp.) dominated the diet by weight (53.3% of total) and number (66.3% of total). Sand lance, winter flounder (Pseudopleuronectes americanus), red/white hake (Urophycis spp.) and Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) together made up 82% of the diet by weight. Cod comprised 6.4% of the diet by weight, although this varied seasonally. Fatty acid profiles were best able to classify seals by age (young-of-the-year pups vs. yearlings, Wilks-Lambda = 0.27, F25,19 = 2.07, p <0.054), suggesting that diet differences were most pronounced between these two groups. Consistent 2:1 ratios of 22:6n3 and 20:5n3 fatty acids occurred in seal blubber (10.12/5.00 = 2.02). These ratios are similar to those in smooth skate (Malacoraja senta, 20.87/10.02 = 2.08) and alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus, 15.04/7.48 = 2.01), indicating that these species were important in the diet. Seals consumed abundant species, and tracked interannual trends in sand lance abundance, but the diet could not be predicted from prey availability alone. Satellite telemetry of seals revealed area restricted search behavior and central place foraging activity in areas with high abundance of sand lance and winter flounder, and these taxa comprised over 72% of the diet estimated from scats.
ACCESS TO URBAN FOOD OUTLETS AS A PREDICTOR OF DIABETES
Author:
Philippe Amstislavski
Year of Dissertation:
2012
Program:
Earth & Environmental Sciences
Background and problem statement:There is an unprecedented rise in diabetes in urban populations worldwide. A relationship between spatial concentration of other metabolic diseases and poor access to healthy foods in some underserved urban neighborhoods have been reported. Concurrently, a relationship between increased risk of developing diabetes and consumption of unhealthy foods and has been shown to exist. Neighborhood food contexts hypothesized to lead to developing diabetes need to be studied.
Neuromodulatory and cytoprotective roles of zinc in the vertebrate retina
Year of Dissertation:
2013
There is increasing evidence that the role of Zn2+ in the central nervous system is more complex and widespread than originally thought. Chelatable Zn2+ is co-localized with glutamate in the terminals of mossy fiber hippocampal and first order retinal neurons. The co-release of Zn2+ with glutamate in a stimulation-dependent manner has been shown in the hippocampus and the distal retina, while the electrophysiological effects of photoreceptor-released Zn2+ suggest a neuromodulatory role at the first visual synapse. This dissertation examines the neuromodulatory and cytoprotective roles of zinc in the vertebrate retina.
West Side Stories: Everyday Life and the social space of West Forty-Sixth Street
Author:
Christian Anderson
Year of Dissertation:
2012
Program:
Earth & Environmental Sciences
This is an ethnographic study of macro-structural change from the vantage point of everyday life on a few blocks of a single street in the Hell's Kitchen/Clinton neighborhood of New York City. The study tells stories from daily life on several blocks of West Forty-Sixth Street between Eighth Avenue and the Hudson River as documented over three years of close observation. These stories show how the actions of some residents serve to lubricate outcomes like privatization, rising housing costs, discriminatory policing, displacement, and eviction. These outcomes then negatively affect others who have less power--particularly undocumented migrants, the elderly, the poor, and people of color. This finding is complicated by the fact that people here are not acting malevolently, but more often than not out of well-intentioned common sense ideas about community, quality of life, and progress. What this means, I contend, is that processes like gentrification, neoliberalization, and inequitable urban development are not simply imposed from outside by macro forces such as real estate capital or top-down urban policy. I argue that these processes are also deeply contingent on everyday life--on the daily actions, ideas, and subjectivities of ordinary people in places such as West Forty-Sixth--which act as a kind of social infrastructure. This situation presents a mash-up of spatial, political, and structural questions about hegemony and power that span the intimate and the global in scope while complicating existing understandings of urban space and everyday life.
The Problem of Malawi in Western Discourse: Power, Patronage, and the Politics of Pity
Year of Dissertation:
2012
Advisor:
Barbara Katz Rothman
While recent sociological work on African social problems tends to focus on particular areas such as HIV/AIDS, this dissertation considers relationships and links between diverse social issues to argue that western-defined African social problems are not only disconnected from what Africans themselves see as their major needs but are also rooted in an historical pattern of power and inequality. Using Malawi as a case study I compare discourse about four diverse social problems--slavery, HIV/AIDS, climate change, and homosexuality. I demonstrate how these vastly different issues are related: each is framed and funded by foreigners and each is depoliticized, often blaming Africans themselves for various negative outcomes of global inequality. But despite the blame, these social problems are presented to the western public through a frame of pity that underscores the need for immediate western intervention.
"Double Consciousness" and "Dual-Voice": Ambivalence and Free Indirect Style in Novels and Films
Year of Dissertation:
2010
Program:
Comparative Literature
This project compares and analyzes five novels and three films: Jane Austen's Emma, Gustave Flaubert's Sentimental Education and Henry James' The Portrait of a Lady, The Ambassadors and The Golden Bowl, Alain Resnais' Hiroshima mon amour, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea's Memories of Underdevelopment and Eric Rohmer's My Night at Maud's. This dissertation describes a link between the uses of free indirect style, a "dual-voiced" narrative mode that combines two distinct perspectives into one instance of discourse: that of a narrator and that of a character, and psychological ambivalence, the back and forth wavering of a fictional character. This dissertation focuses on novels and narrative fiction films that center on one character, and it shows the ways in which these works call attention to a character's ambivalence and hesitations while relying on free indirect style, a formally ambivalent narrative mode, to expose and, at times, to create ambivalence in the mind of the reader or viewer. As an interdisciplinary project, this dissertation locates free indirect style in prose and cinematic narration, and it also explores the implications of analyzing a traditionally linguistic and literary mode within cinema.