Points of Canonical Height Zero on Projective Varieties
Year of Dissertation:
2010
Let k be an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero, C a smooth connected projective curve defined over k, K =k(C) the function field of C. Let Y be a projective K-variety, L a very ample line bundle on Y and α : Y &rarr Y a K-morphism such that α *<\super>L = L × d. We prove that a projective integral C-scheme Y is isotrivial when it is covered by a projective integral k-scheme X= X0<\sub> × C, where X0<\sub> is a k-scheme. This result provides a setup for a conjecture of L. Szpiro on parametrization of points of canonical height zero of the dynamical system (Y,L, α).
Interfacial Transport Processes Involved in the Surfactant Facilitated Wetting of Liquids on Solid Surfaces and Non-wetting on Superhydrophobic Surfaces.
Year of Dissertation:
2011
Advisor:
Charles Maldarelli
The control of the wetting properties of aqueous solutions on surfaces is critical to the implementation of many industrial technologies. Aqueous solutions are often required to rapidly wet hydrophobic solid and liquid (oil) surfaces. Surfactants, dissolved above the critical micelle concentration, are useful in quickly reducing aqueous/solid and aqueous/oil tensions to facilitate spreading. In other applications, aqueous droplets are required to roll over surfaces, and surfaces engineered with textures which trap air between grooves as the drop moves over the surface retain large droplet contact angles and reduced friction, which causes rolling.
Synthesis and characterization of Lanthanide Aluminotungstates and Rhenium Polyoxometalates: Potential Application in Molecular Information Storage Devices
Year of Dissertation:
2011
Abstract
The Thief of Paradise: Milton and Seventh-day Adventism
Year of Dissertation:
2010
This dissertation has two protagonists. One is John Milton. The other is Ellen Gould White, prophetess of Seventh-day Adventism and among the most overlooked, by ratio to her scope and impact, of American nineteenth-century theological writers. Their relationship, White's to Milton, Milton's to White, is not untroubled. It includes moments of uncertainty, of evasion, of occasional deception, moments when the record of their rapport disappears and threatens not to reappear. Yet the curve of this relationship, because broken, indicates something not only of Milton's surfacing in America but, to adopt a term from Henry James, the "abysses" from which he surfaces - and into which at times he recedes. I will demonstrate that Seventh-day Adventism comprises not only one of the most extensive absorptions of Milton into American religious, political, and literary life, but also one of the most important - which is to say, White's encounter with Milton instantiated more than a garden-variety literary appropriation, but an appropriation with ripples, ripples amplifying to waves. If we are to believe Carlos Martyn's suggestion in the first American book-length biography of Milton that "it may, in some sense, be said that religious and political America sprang from Milton's brain," we must then understand White's prophetic writings to be a crucial platform for the acrobatics of that event. The platform is ever more crucial, moreover, as Adventism continues to expand in membership at an enormous rate and as that expansion acquires an international emphasis: America, having sprung from Milton, then springs a distinctively American version of Milton into a global milieu. I hope to describe why White's Miltonic appropriation matters, hence to open within Milton studies as well as American studies an expansive new field of application and significance for Milton's avowed ambition that "I might perhaps leave something so written to aftertimes, as they should not willingly let it die."
ENHANCING THE PERFORMANCE OF ACTIVE CONNECTIONS IN MANETS THROUGH DYNAMIC ROUTE AND POWER OPTIMIZATION
Year of Dissertation:
2010
In this thesis, we consider two significant problems that occur within active connections in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). These are: (A) degradation of path optimality in terms of hop count, and (B) failures on the constituents links of a path. Both phenomena occur over time because of node movement. Our investigation considers
GENDER (IN)EQUALITY IN POLAND FOUR YEARS AFTER ENTERING THE EU: YOUNG POLISH FEMINISTS SPEAK THEIR MINDS - CASE STUDY OF KONSOLA ORGANIZATION
Year of Dissertation:
2011
Advisor:
Hester Eisenstein
This dissertation concerns the study of gender (in)equality in Poland as it is experienced by the young Polish feminists themselves. Through in depth interviews, an ethnographic study of young Polish feminists belonging to the most active feminist organization in Poznan, Poland, supplemented by works of contemporary Eastern European as well as Western feminists I have tried to show how feminism is experienced, explained, lived through, fought for and talked about in contemporary European Union belonging Poland. I argue that feminism, although known on a large scale in Poland, still has a status of a problematic word on which a spell of suspicion had been set due to particulars of Polish history, including the treatment of gender issues by the Communist government, the Solidarity Trade Movement and the understated power of the Polish Catholic Church in this matter. Because each of these institutions created their own meaning of gender rights and feminism overall, these confusing messages have for years entangled and problematized the meaning of feminism, creating unflattering stereotypes of what feminism is as a movement, who feminists are, what they are fighting for and in what manners. Feminism became associated with images of burly women who burn bras, don't shave their legs and hate men. Although feminism in Poland is still largely relegated to the academic sphere, the actions these young active feminists take, such as their growing presence on the local scale through organizing, sponsoring and coordinating feminist events, cooperation with other women's organizations in organizing, conferences and publications on the issues of women's presence on the local and national levels in the media, have been slowly paying off. Because of the efforts of women from KONSOLA, feminism is becoming a less problematic word in the contemporary Poland.
Arts Work: A Typology of Skills for Arts-Based Group Workers
Year of Dissertation:
2010
The arts are utilized in groups across the applied humanities and social sciences with a wide range of populations to address a multitude of individual, group, and community needs. Despite literature suggesting challenges to the implementation of mutual aid based groups in social work, a body of empirical evidence exists on the use and benefits of the arts in working with groups across social science disciplines, including social work. In groups that utilize purposeful activity, balance of group process and task completion is integral to the development of the group as a system of mutual aid.
Meaning Making at the Interface of Gender, Disability, and Policy: Physically Disabled Women in London and Coventry, England Explore the Covention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Year of Dissertation:
2012
Historically, persons with disabilities are socially, culturally, and economically underprivileged and neglected worldwide (WHO, 2006, 2011) and this is especially true of women with disabilities. The intersection between women's gender and their disabilities, although overlooked for many decades, has been described as the phenomenon of a dual handicap. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD, 2006) was created to protect the rights of all people with disabilities and, for the first time in history, identified women with disabilities as a population that has unique rights and needs that warrant special legislation and protection.
On the Arithmetic and Geometry of Quaternion Algebras: a spectral correspondence for Maass waveforms
Year of Dissertation:
2011
An Examination of the Goodness of Fit Model: How is the Relationship Between Child Temperament and Behavior Expressed in Different Types of Classroom Environments?
Year of Dissertation:
2010
Program:
Educational Psychology
The present study examined how the relationship between child temperament and behavior is expressed in different types of classroom environments in prekindergarten settings. Other goals of the study were to further operationalize the goodness of fit model in school settings and to evaluate possible interactions of process variables indicative of classroom quality with child temperament to see if these interactions predicted child behavior and social skills. Participants included 130 students and their teachers (N = 11) in three prekindergarten settings. Child temperament was measured using the Total Temperament score from the Teacher and Caregiver Temperament Inventory for Children (TACTIC; Billman & McDevitt, 1998). Classroom quality and environment characteristics were measured using the Program Structure scale of the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scales-Revised (ECERS-R; Harms et al., 2005) and the Sensitivity subscale score from the Caregiver Interaction Scale (CIS; Arnett, 1989). Outcomes in behavioral and social domains were measured using the Externalizing Behavior Problems and Social Skills subscales on the Preschool and Kindergarten Behavior Scales- Second Edition (PKBS-2; Merrell, 2002). Hierarchical linear modeling indicated that child temperament alone was the sole predictor of child externalizing behavior, while child temperament, disability status, and school program structure predicted child social skills. Overall, the study indicated that the goodness of fit model when operationalized in terms of the transactional relationship between temperament and environmental demand factors of characteristics of the classroom setting (as informed by the classroom quality literature) has predictive value and describes child behavioral and social outcomes in prekindergarten settings.