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- Title
- Synthesis and structural characterization of intermediates towards the preparation of a polyphosphonate ester containing L-dopa for the potential treatment of Parkinson's disease.
- Creator
- Chamely-Wiik, Donna M., Florida Atlantic University, Haky, Jerome E., Carraher, Charles E., Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
- Abstract/Description
-
We have synthesized intermediates towards the preparation of a polyphosphonate ester containing L-dopa for the potential treatment of Parkinson's disease. A synthetic strategy was devised to be more reproducible than the original strategy. We discovered some very interesting chemistry of one of the intermediates produced from this new scheme. We synthesized L-N-(butyloxycarbonyl)-3-(3-hydroxy-ethyl-4-(benzyloxy)-phenyl)alanine benzylester, a compound containing a secondary alcohol moiety that...
Show moreWe have synthesized intermediates towards the preparation of a polyphosphonate ester containing L-dopa for the potential treatment of Parkinson's disease. A synthetic strategy was devised to be more reproducible than the original strategy. We discovered some very interesting chemistry of one of the intermediates produced from this new scheme. We synthesized L-N-(butyloxycarbonyl)-3-(3-hydroxy-ethyl-4-(benzyloxy)-phenyl)alanine benzylester, a compound containing a secondary alcohol moiety that had a unique set of characteristics. Upon reduction of the N-(tert-butyloxycarbonyl)-3-(3-acetyl-4-benzyloxyphenyl)-L-alanine benzylester, which contained a ketone moiety, to produce the secondary alcohol, we discovered that the materials that were formed included a pair of diastereomers of the secondary alcohol, each diastereomer also exhibiting two individually stable conformational isomers. We believe that the conformational isomers were generated by rotation of the C-N bond of the BOC carbamate, and were so stable that they could be separated by HPLC and NMR techniques. Energy optimization studies and molecular modeling techniques were performed using HyperChem, and rotational barrier energy values were calculated for the different conformational isomers for each of the diastereomers. HPLC and NMR techniques were also used to obtain information about these materials. Using the calculated data from these studies, and analyzing the HPLC chromatograms and NMR spectra we were able to fully determine the assignments for the diastereomers and the individual conformational isomers. We discovered that the SS form was synthesized preferentially over the SR form and that in both cases the E conformation was energetically more stable than the Z form. Octanol/water partition coefficient values (Log P0ct) were also determined and compared to L-dopa and dopamine. We concluded that the values for the dimeric compound that we synthesized and many of its potential products of degradation were significantly higher than that for both L-dopa and dopamine. This may be an indication that this material has a higher degree of lipophilicity than L-dopa itself, having more potential to cross the blood brain barrier. We believe that these intermediate materials serve as good indication of how a polyphosphonate ester containing L-dopa would compare as a potential drug for Parkinson's disease.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2004
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/12108
- Subject Headings
- Parkinson's disease--Treatment, Antiparkinsonian agents, Dopa, Organophosphorus compounds--Synthesis, Chemistry, Analytic
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Effects of cement alkalinity, exposure conditions and steel-concrete interface on the time-to-corrosion and chloride threshold for reinforcing steel in concrete.
- Creator
- Nam, Jingak., Florida Atlantic University, Hartt, William H., College of Engineering and Computer Science, Department of Ocean and Mechanical Engineering
- Abstract/Description
-
Effects of (1) cement alkalinity (low, normal and high), (2) exposure conditions (RH and temperature), (3) rebar surface condition (as-received versus cleaned) and (4) density and distribution of air voids at the steel-concrete interface on the chloride threshold and time-to-corrosion for reinforcing steel in concrete have been studied. Also, experiments were performed to evaluate effects of RH and temperature on the diffusion of chloride in concrete and develop a method for ex-situ pH...
Show moreEffects of (1) cement alkalinity (low, normal and high), (2) exposure conditions (RH and temperature), (3) rebar surface condition (as-received versus cleaned) and (4) density and distribution of air voids at the steel-concrete interface on the chloride threshold and time-to-corrosion for reinforcing steel in concrete have been studied. Also, experiments were performed to evaluate effects of RH and temperature on the diffusion of chloride in concrete and develop a method for ex-situ pH measurement of concrete pore water. Once specimens were fabricated and exposed to a corrosive chloride solution, various experimental techniques were employed to determine time-to-corrosion, chloride threshold, diffusion coefficient and void density along the rebar trace as well as pore water pH. Based upon the resultant data, several findings related to the above parameters have been obtained as summarized below. First, time for the corrosion initiation was longest for G109 concrete specimens with high alkalinity cement (HA). Also, chloride threshold increased with increasing time-to-corrosion and cement alkalinity. Consequently, the HA specimens exhibited the highest chloride threshold compared to low and normal alkalinity ones. Second, high temperature and temperature variations reduced time-to-corrosion of reinforcing steel in concrete since chloride diffusion was accelerated at higher temperature and possibly by temperature variations. The lowest chloride threshold values were found for outdoor exposed specimens suggesting that variation of RH or temperature (or both) facilitated rapid chloride diffusion. Third, an elevated time-to-corrosion and chloride threshold values were found for the wire brushed steel specimens compared to as-received ones. The higher ratio of [OH-]/[Fe n+] on the wire brushed steel surface compared to that of as-received case can be the possible cause because the higher ratio of this parameter enables the formation of a more protective passive film on the rebar. Fourth, voids at the steel-concrete interface facilitated passive film breakdown and onset of localized corrosion. This tendency for corrosion initiation increased in proportion to void size irrespective of specimen type. Also, [Cl -]th decreased with increasing void diameter. In addition, new ex-situ leaching method for determining concrete pore water alkalinity was developed.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2004
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/12096
- Subject Headings
- Reinforced concrete construction, Chlorides, Steel--Corrosion, Composite reinforced concrete
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Hybrid stress analysis using digitized photoelastic data and numerical methods.
- Creator
- Mahfuz, Hassan, Florida Atlantic University, Case, Robert O., College of Engineering and Computer Science, Department of Ocean and Mechanical Engineering
- Abstract/Description
-
Equations of stress-difference elasticity, derived from the equations of equilibrium and compatibility for a two-dimensional stress field, are solved for arbitrarily digitized, singly and multiply connected domains. Photoelastic data determined experimentally along the boundary provide the boundary values for the solution of the three elliptic partial differential equations by the finite difference method. A computerized method is developed to generate grid mesh, weighting functions and nodal...
Show moreEquations of stress-difference elasticity, derived from the equations of equilibrium and compatibility for a two-dimensional stress field, are solved for arbitrarily digitized, singly and multiply connected domains. Photoelastic data determined experimentally along the boundary provide the boundary values for the solution of the three elliptic partial differential equations by the finite difference method. A computerized method is developed to generate grid mesh, weighting functions and nodal connectivity within the digitized boundary for the solution of these partial differential equations. A method is introduced to digitize the photoelastic fringes, namely isochromatics and isoclinics, and to estimate the values of sigma1 - sigma2, sigma x - sigma y and tau xy at each nodal point by an interpolation technique. Interpolated values of the stress parameters are used to improve the initial estimate and hence the convergence of the iterative solution of the system of equations. Superfluous boundary conditions are added from the digitized photoelastic data for further speeding up the rate of convergence. The boundary of the domain and the photoelastic fringes are digitized by physically traversing the cursor along the boundary, and the digitized information is scanned horizontally and vertically to generate internal and boundary nodal points. A linear search determines the nodal connectivity and isolates the boundary points for the input of the boundary values. A similar scanning method estimates the photoelastic parameters at each nodal point and also finds the points closest to the tint of passage of each photoelastic fringe. Stress values at these close points are determined without interpolation and are subsequently used as superfluous boundary conditions in the iteration scheme. Successive over-relaxation is applied to the classical Gauss-Seidel method for final enhancement of the convergence of the iteration process. The iteration scheme starts with an accelerating factor other than unity and estimates the spectral radius of the iteration matrix from the two vector norms. This information is used to estimate a temporary value of the optimum relaxation parameter, omega[opt], which is used for a fixed number of iterations to approximate a better value of the accelerating factor. The process is continued until two successive estimates differ by a given tolerance or the stopping criteria are reached. Detailed techniques of developing the code for mesh generation, photoelastic data collection and boundary value interpolation to solve the elliptic boundary value problems are presented. Three separate examples with varying stress gradients and fringe patterns are presented to test the validity of the code and the overall method. Results are compared with the analytical and experimental solutions, and the significant improvement in the rate of convergence is demonstrated.
Show less - Date Issued
- 1989
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/11934
- Subject Headings
- Strains and stresses, Photoelasticity, Numerical analysis--Data processing
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Of televisions and t-shirts: The making of a gendered working class and the 'Made in India' label.
- Creator
- Lal, Jayati., Cornell University
- Abstract/Description
-
Trends in the global economy in the last decade towards an increasingly internationalized division of labor, characterized by the spatially fragmented and functionally flexible global assembly line, have led to an expanded demand for women's labor in export oriented manufacturing in the third world. This thesis examines the trend towards feminization in the export oriented garment industry and the domestic market oriented television industry in Delhi. Both industries grew exponentially during...
Show moreTrends in the global economy in the last decade towards an increasingly internationalized division of labor, characterized by the spatially fragmented and functionally flexible global assembly line, have led to an expanded demand for women's labor in export oriented manufacturing in the third world. This thesis examines the trend towards feminization in the export oriented garment industry and the domestic market oriented television industry in Delhi. Both industries grew exponentially during the decade of the 1980s and have been direct beneficiaries of the neoliberal shift in India's development policies since that period., A survey of representative firms in each industry undertaken by this study reveals the increasing demand for women workers. In garment production, women are being substituted for skilled male workers and are likely to be either deskilled proletarianized workers in factories or part of a large unskilled subproletariat workforce that provides contract labor to factories. In television firms, women are preferred as semi- and un-skilled proletarianized line workers. The historical imperative towards feminization in these two industries rests on the gendered representations of male and female workers by managers and owners; gender differences that, they argue, are manifest in the differing potential for controlling workers' labor power and tendencies towards unionization., Women's work-histories indicate that, although many women are longtime workers, factory employment is a new experience for the majority. The specific nature of women's proletarianization in globalized production is examined in light of current sociological debates on class formation and locations. This thesis argues that these structural transformations in labor patterns and production systems are secured in complicity with women's desires, while simultaneously transforming their subjectivities. Among working class women, factory work is desirable because it secures gendered regimes of production that contain their sexuality via the control of their labor and bodies and the embodiment of this control into the sexual geographies of production. In the sexually disturbed and heterotopic landscapes of urban industrial production, where working women's bodies transgress the boundaries of proper bourgeoisie femininity that is normatively contained within private domestic spaces, it is argued that the discursive practices of "domesticating factory publics" by working class women secures their respectability and reinscribes an/other version of Indian femininity; one that remains subordinated within patriarchal norms despite its public performance.
Show less - Date Issued
- 1998, 1998
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/40879
- Subject Headings
- Women's Studies, Sociology, Industrial and Labor Relations, Sociology, Social Structure and Development
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Ten millionaires and ten million beggars: A study of dualism, income inequality, households, class and development in Kenya.
- Creator
- Githinji, Mwangi wa., University of California, Riverside
- Abstract/Description
-
The study of less industrialised countries has long been dominated by the use of dualistic models of the economy. These models have a long history beginning with Adam Smith's conceptualisation of an economy as composed of a modern and a traditional sector, to the more recent models based on the work of Sir Arthur Lewis and the framework constructed by Harris and Todaro. The intent of this study is to investigate whether the stylised facts that emanate from these models are still relevant in...
Show moreThe study of less industrialised countries has long been dominated by the use of dualistic models of the economy. These models have a long history beginning with Adam Smith's conceptualisation of an economy as composed of a modern and a traditional sector, to the more recent models based on the work of Sir Arthur Lewis and the framework constructed by Harris and Todaro. The intent of this study is to investigate whether the stylised facts that emanate from these models are still relevant in looking at issues of income distribution in less industrialised countries in general and specifically in Kenya., The core of this study is an empirical examination of the patterns of income distribution and time allocation in Kenya in 1988. The research is based on an analysis of data from the Urban Labour Force Survey of 1986 and the Rural Labour Force Survey of 1988. These data make it possible to calculate more reliable estimates of the distribution of household income in Kenya. These new estimates are compared to the stylised facts of dualistic models and past studies of income distribution in Kenya. An examination is made of the sources of inequality, the rural-urban gap, intra-rural and intra-urban inequality., We examine the distribution of labour time within households and among households. We specifically examine the relationship between the amount of time worked and income earned and the gender division of labour. We show that contrary to the implicit assumptions of the dualistic models of development, the distribution of underemployment is not even across the rural economy and the unevenness of distribution has ramifications on how one models rural-urban migration in a dualistic model of an economy., Finally, we investigate questions of class and income distribution in rural areas. We argue that traditional notions of class do not adequately address the heterogeneity in the organisation of production in the rural areas. Based on a different conceptualisation of class we categorise the rural population into different class structures and compare the income distribution across them.
Show less - Date Issued
- 1997, 1997
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/40857
- Subject Headings
- Economics, General, Economics, Labor
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- The health policy consequences of participatory planning: An inquiry into the application of social systems theory in a turbulent market environment.
- Creator
- Valentine, John Alexander., University of Pennsylvania
- Abstract/Description
-
Health policy professionals throughout the nation have been concerned for the past decade about the rising cost of health care. One factor perceived to be a major contributor to that problem is the role of the physician as the "gatekeeper" that shapes the size of the system. Consequently, considerable pressure has been developing to constrain the supply of physicians in this country., A major concern in the State of New Jersey is the impact of the residency training programs that prepare...
Show moreHealth policy professionals throughout the nation have been concerned for the past decade about the rising cost of health care. One factor perceived to be a major contributor to that problem is the role of the physician as the "gatekeeper" that shapes the size of the system. Consequently, considerable pressure has been developing to constrain the supply of physicians in this country., A major concern in the State of New Jersey is the impact of the residency training programs that prepare physicians. Of particular interest is the size of the state graduate medical education system which exceeds some size recommendations by 100%. That excessive size has a negative effect on both the cost and the quality of residency training., Two task forces were formed in the fall of 1985 to examine this dilemma and develop new policy guidelines for graduate medical education. Because of the delicate political nature of the relationship between medical schools and teaching hospitals, an attempt was made to utilize a participatory approach to engage graduate medical education constituents in the policy planning process., The task forces met over the course of a year and issued a set of recommendations that included a reduction in the size of the state graduate medical education system. The vehicle created to achieve the task force goals was a strategic planning group that would involve residency program directors and other stakeholders in policy planning., A follow-up study was conducted to assess the impact of the recommended policy changes. Change in program size was minimal. A survey of residency program directors was conducted to help interpret that outcome. Forty percent of the program directors who responded to the questionnaire were not even familiar with the policy recommendations. However, the delayed development of the strategic planning group and the unfamiliarity with the policy recommendations may mean that there is still hope for improvement if that group can begin to provide strong leadership within the state.
Show less - Date Issued
- 1989, 1989
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/40674
- Subject Headings
- Sociology, Theory and Methods, Business Administration, Management, Health Sciences, Health Care Management
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- A RE-ANALYSIS OF NEOGENE CARIBBEAN PROVINCIALITY WITH REFERENCE TO THE DISCOVERY OF A RELICT CAENOGASTROPOD FAUNA OFF NORTHERN SOUTH AMERICA.
- Creator
- PETUCH, EDWARD JAMES., University of Miami
- Abstract/Description
-
Previously unknown Mio-Pliocene relict molluscan assemblages have been found to exist in pockets in shallow water along northern Columbia and Venezuela. Thirty-five relict gastropod species of the families Turritellidae, Calyptraeidae, Cypraeidae, Cassidae, Ficidae, Columbellidae, Buccinidae, Fasciolariidae, Olividae, Mitridae, Volutomitridae, Volutidae, Marginellidae, Cancellariidae, Conidae, Terebridae, and Turridae, are described and their Recent and fossil distributions outlined. Based on...
Show morePreviously unknown Mio-Pliocene relict molluscan assemblages have been found to exist in pockets in shallow water along northern Columbia and Venezuela. Thirty-five relict gastropod species of the families Turritellidae, Calyptraeidae, Cypraeidae, Cassidae, Ficidae, Columbellidae, Buccinidae, Fasciolariidae, Olividae, Mitridae, Volutomitridae, Volutidae, Marginellidae, Cancellariidae, Conidae, Terebridae, and Turridae, are described and their Recent and fossil distributions outlined. Based on the unusual ecological conditions in which the relicts have been found to be living, the environment of the Neogene Caribbean region is reconstructed and a new model of Neogene provinciality is proposed. A synthetic working definition of provinciality is given and, using this, two new Neogene molluscan provinces, the Caloosahatchian and the Gatunian, are described. The evolution of their gastropod faunas is traced from the Lower Miocene to the Upper Pliocene, and into the Recent as the Gatunian relict pocket. To explain both the existence of the relicts and their affinities with the Recent Panamic fauna, a new model of Upper Pliocene biological catastrophism and extinction is proposed, incorporating aspects of the effects of the closing of the Isthmus of Panama and glacially induced sea level fluctuations and temperature changes.
Show less - Date Issued
- 1980, 1980
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/40549
- Subject Headings
- Geological Survey, Biology, Oceanography, 0374, 0416
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Solventando las diferencias: Para una critica de la ideologia y el imaginario literario del mestizaje cubano.
- Creator
- Duno-Gottberg, Luis., University of Pittsburgh
- Abstract/Description
-
This thesis investigates the discursive strategies various Cuban writers employed to paper over racial conflict, which, in their eyes, presented a threat to the possibility of achieving "full" nationhood in the modern world. Between 1840 and 1960, the ideology of mestizaje, or race mixture, came to inform---indeed to structure---the nation-building discourse of writers as diverse as Jose Antonion Saco, Jose Marti, Fernando Ortiz, Alejo Carpentier, and Jose Lezama Lima. The ideology insisted,...
Show moreThis thesis investigates the discursive strategies various Cuban writers employed to paper over racial conflict, which, in their eyes, presented a threat to the possibility of achieving "full" nationhood in the modern world. Between 1840 and 1960, the ideology of mestizaje, or race mixture, came to inform---indeed to structure---the nation-building discourse of writers as diverse as Jose Antonion Saco, Jose Marti, Fernando Ortiz, Alejo Carpentier, and Jose Lezama Lima. The ideology insisted, in the face of evidence of deep-seated division along racial lines, that mestizaje, a process at once biological and cultural, provided the basis for Cuban national unity in the face of first Spanish Colonial rule and then U.S. imperial power. This thesis looks at the extent to which the ideology of mestizaje, attempting both to include and contain "blackness" within the nation, left intact hierarchical relations of power and prestige forged in the colonial period. It is thus a study of letrados criollos creating figures and tropes that cement a discourse intended to speak for the entire nation and, at the same time, to silence its "black" members and to domesticate their political struggles., The thesis is divided into three parts corresponding to three distinct periods in modern Cuban history: 1840--95, 1910--40 and 1940--59. Each part is further subdivided into chapters dealing with representative examples of the ideology of mestizaje. The first chapter examines texts of Jose Antonio Saco, Domingo del Monte y Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda, to show how Cuban abolitionist discourse, while claming to speak for the slave population, also subordinates it to an essentially non-black ideal of racial transformation (blanqueamiento). The second chapter explores nineteenth-century liberal readings of Silvestre de Balboa Troya y Quesada's Espejo de Paciencia (1608). It demonstrates that even as anxiety about the potential for black slave revolt spread among the Cuban upper classes, Balboa's text offered an image of black and white fraternal "unity" in the face of foreign enemies and thus a model for nationhood. Continuing the theme of the relation of nation and mestizaje, the third chapter focuses on Jose Marti and his use of the imagery of racial harmony., The second part of the thesis looks at articulations of the myth of racial democracy during the period of the Republic and Machado dictatorship and its aftermath, in the work of the vanguardistas---Emilio Ballagas, Nicolas Guillen Juan Marinello and Jorge Manach---and, in a separate chapter, in Fernando Ortiz's seminal contribution to Cuban cultural theory., In the third and final part of the thesis, the neo-baroque, as formulated by Alejo Carpentier, Jose Lezama Lima and Severo Sarduy, is interrogated in chapters dedicated to each of these figures as, in essence, a continuation of the ideology of mestizaje. Sarduy's work, however, is seen as inaugurating in its celebration of performativity and heterogeneity a possible break with the ideology.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2000, 2000
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/40945
- Subject Headings
- Literature, Latin American, History, Latin American, Literature, Caribbean, 0312, 0336, 0360
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- The effects of situated cognition, academic efficacy, and intrinsic motivation on education students' learning of reciprocal teaching.
- Creator
- Willems, Patricia Pulido., University of Florida
- Abstract/Description
-
This study investigated the effects of an instructional method based on the tenets of situated cognition versus a lecture-discussion method of instruction on education students' learning of the reciprocal teaching instructional strategy. Academic efficacy and intrinsic motivation were also included in this study as predictors for students' performance on the outcome measure. Prior to the onset of treatment, the participants' academic efficacy and intrinsic motivation was measured using the...
Show moreThis study investigated the effects of an instructional method based on the tenets of situated cognition versus a lecture-discussion method of instruction on education students' learning of the reciprocal teaching instructional strategy. Academic efficacy and intrinsic motivation were also included in this study as predictors for students' performance on the outcome measure. Prior to the onset of treatment, the participants' academic efficacy and intrinsic motivation was measured using the MSPSE and the MSLQ respectively. The participants, 156 undergraduate education students enrolled in required education courses were taught the reciprocal teaching instructional strategy via one of the two instructional methods. Following the instruction, the participants were tested on their knowledge of the strategy using the Reciprocal Teaching Test (RTT), which consisted of a factual section and an applied section. Overall, the situated cognition group performed better on the RTT than the lecture-discussion group. These students were able to learn in an environment more similar to the classroom environment in which the strategy will ultimately be used, as well as accurately transfer knowledge to novel real-life scenarios. Results with regards to the lecture-discussion method of instruction, found that these students had a higher mean on the factual section of the RTT. This finding indicates that reciprocal teaching knowledge for the factual items could be acquired employing either of these instructional methods, with the lecture-discussion method being a better choice. However, applied knowledge is best acquired using the situated cognition method. Thus, the implication for this finding is whether the intention is to measure knowledge using factual questions, or applied questions. If factual information were to be tested then the lecture-discussion method of, instruction would be as good of method to use or even better than the situated cognition approach. However, if the intention were to have students acquire information that can later be applied in a real-life context, the situated cognition method of instruction would be more likely to achieve that goal. Academic efficacy proved to be a significant predictor of students' scores on both sections of the Reciprocal Teaching Test (RTT), whereas intrinsic motivation did not.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2000, 2000
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/40944
- Subject Headings
- Education, Educational Psychology, Education, Teacher Training
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Embattled neighbors: Israel, Syria and the elusive peace.
- Creator
- Rabil, Robert, Brandeis University
- Abstract/Description
-
At the very beginning of the twentieth century, the Arab nationalist thinker Negib Azoury predicted that the rising Jewish and Arab nationalist movements are set on a collision course. The Zionist movement in Palestine and then in Israel came to embody this Jewish nationalism. On the other hand, independent Syria took upon itself the task of representing the Arab nationalist movement and its aspirations. This is how Syria and Israel became embattled and warring neighbors., This dissertation...
Show moreAt the very beginning of the twentieth century, the Arab nationalist thinker Negib Azoury predicted that the rising Jewish and Arab nationalist movements are set on a collision course. The Zionist movement in Palestine and then in Israel came to embody this Jewish nationalism. On the other hand, independent Syria took upon itself the task of representing the Arab nationalist movement and its aspirations. This is how Syria and Israel became embattled and warring neighbors., This dissertation tries to chart the course of the conflict between these two new Middle Eastern states and to study its phases from Israel's War of Independence to the present peace process and negotiations between the two countries., During these phases American policy continued to consider Syria a pivotal player in the stability and affairs of the region. This in spite of Syria's traditional close relations with the Soviet Union. Israel, on the other hand, deepened its strategic relationship and cooperation with the U.S. The Desert Storm military operation against Iraq plus the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Palestinian Intifada introduced massive changes in the political configuration of the Middle East. The most important byproduct of these changes was the takeoff of the peace process at the Madrid Peace Conference in 1991., Contrary to expectations, the dawning of the post-Cold War age did not lead to a lessening of tensions in the region. Instead, it led to a new alignment of forces involving Israel and Turkey, on one side, and Syria and Iran, on the other. This, in addition to a new Arab political front facing Israel and consisting of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria., The Palestinians succeeded in reaching the Oslo breakthrough with the Israelis while the Jordanians concluded their own peace treaty with the Jewish state leaving Syria to focus on its own part of the peace process. The protracted nature of the Israeli-Syrian negotiations show that both countries are having difficulty shedding their deep-seated anxieties, ingrained habits and the traditional constraints of their domestic politics. My conclusion is that a deep peace between Israel and Syria remains elusive in the foreseeable future although a face saving settlement might probably take place on the basis of returning the Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for a cold contractual peace.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2001, 2001
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/40943
- Subject Headings
- History, Middle Eastern, Political Science, International Law and Relations
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- System and mystery: Varieties of silence in twentieth-century literature.
- Creator
- Schwartz, Jason, Lehigh University
- Abstract/Description
-
The Hebrew Bible, early Christian asceticism, Quakerism, and the Kantian sublime present contrasting and sometimes paradoxical perceptions of silence. The Hebrew Bible offers silence in a variety of forms, introducing notions and associations that reappear in numerous texts. Aspects of Catholic monasticism and early Quakerism address silence's mutability and ambiguity, themes common in certain works of nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature. For instance, Edgar Allan Poe's silent...
Show moreThe Hebrew Bible, early Christian asceticism, Quakerism, and the Kantian sublime present contrasting and sometimes paradoxical perceptions of silence. The Hebrew Bible offers silence in a variety of forms, introducing notions and associations that reappear in numerous texts. Aspects of Catholic monasticism and early Quakerism address silence's mutability and ambiguity, themes common in certain works of nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature. For instance, Edgar Allan Poe's silent version of Eden, prefigured by the desert ascetics, prefigures the silent landscapes of many modern works. Motifs concerning desert metaphor, God's Word, and annihilation dominate other works. This project considers precursor texts by nineteenth-century writers (Poe, Emily Dickinson, Herman Melville); summarizes familiar cultural arguments regarding silence (by Susan Sontag and George Steiner); and identifies works by twentieth-century writers conventionally associated with silence (including Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter).
Show less - Date Issued
- 2001, 2001
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/40942
- Subject Headings
- Literature, Modern, Religion, General
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- A multivariate model of the stress and coping process for victims of crime.
- Creator
- Green, Diane Lois., The University of Texas at Austin
- Abstract/Description
-
This study investigated the causal influences of well-being from an integrated theoretical perspective. Variables such as appraisal, social support, levels of distress, coping strategies and well-being were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results yielded 8 findings that provide support for a modification to Folkman's integrated theoretical perspective on stress and coping. The instruments used are viable to identify successful coping strategies and should be implemented with...
Show moreThis study investigated the causal influences of well-being from an integrated theoretical perspective. Variables such as appraisal, social support, levels of distress, coping strategies and well-being were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results yielded 8 findings that provide support for a modification to Folkman's integrated theoretical perspective on stress and coping. The instruments used are viable to identify successful coping strategies and should be implemented with this population with focus on treatment efforts., One hundred seventy-five victims of violent or non-violent crime were interviewed. It was found that victims utilizing emotion-focused coping strategies reported higher levels of well-being than those victims who utilized problem-focused coping or avoidance oriented coping. It was also found that most of the individual demographic characteristics did not have a significant relationship with levels of distress experienced. Implications for social work practice and theory, policy, education and future research were delineated.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2000, 2000
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/40941
- Subject Headings
- Social Work, Psychology, Clinical
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Anarchy in the United States of America: Capitalism, postmodernity, and punk subculture since the 1970s.
- Creator
- Moore, Ryan Maximillian., University of California, San Diego
- Abstract/Description
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This dissertation examines the cultural consequences of structural transformation in American society during the past three decades. Since the early 1970s, the political economies of advanced capitalist societies have been reorganized by a concurrent process of deindustrialization in the manufacturing sector and expansion in commercial media and culture. In the U.S. and elsewhere, this has further polarized the class structure and hierarchies of power, but also provoked a qualitative crisis...
Show moreThis dissertation examines the cultural consequences of structural transformation in American society during the past three decades. Since the early 1970s, the political economies of advanced capitalist societies have been reorganized by a concurrent process of deindustrialization in the manufacturing sector and expansion in commercial media and culture. In the U.S. and elsewhere, this has further polarized the class structure and hierarchies of power, but also provoked a qualitative crisis of self-identity, social relationships, symbolic meaning, and collective memory., This project explores the transformation of American society through the lens of contemporary youth cultures, and specifically an ethnographic study of punk rock subcultures in southern California. Young people provide a unique perspective on social change because they have been disproportionately affected by constricting economic opportunities and saturation with commercial media, while the dramatic performances, cynical nihilism, and ironic parody of punk subculture serve to illuminate the cultural crisis known as the "condition of post modernity." This study is based on three years of field observation and in-depth interviews with participants in a local punk subculture, as well as historical evidence and analyses of music and style., Based on this research, I conclude that punk subcultures reflect and respond to larger social crises on two levels. The first is in the symbolic content of punk music, fashion, and performance, all of which personify the symptoms of social decline, be they apocalyptic despair or juvenile degeneracy. Whereas previous countercultures have imagined possibilities for transcendence and change, the styles and sounds of punk can only refuse and destroy. The second conclusion locates a more constructive dimension, however, in the methods of commercially independent production known as the "do-it-yourself ethic" of punk subculture. This involves young people who have appropriated media technologies and consumer identities in the creation of amateur garage bands, self-published magazines, independent record labels, and local communities of performance. These cultural practices are replete with contradictions, but they also suggest utopian possibilities in the way that young people have constructed media which allow them to create, communicate, and develop a sense of participatory community.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2000, 2000
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/40940
- Subject Headings
- American Studies, Music, Sociology, Social Structure and Development
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- The phylogeny of recent and fossil Soritacea (Foraminifera): The evolutionary significance of photosymbiosis; and a revision of the foraminiferal life cycle.
- Creator
- Richardson, Susan Lynn., Yale University
- Abstract/Description
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Recent molecular phylogenies have shown Foraminifera to comprise a distinct clade of basal mitochondrial eukaryotes that diverged relatively early in the evolution of eukaryotes. The significance of the haplo-diploid foraminiferal life cycle is reinterpreted within this phylogenetic context using information compiled from the published literature, field and laboratory observations. A new concept of the foraminiferal life cycle is presented that facilitates comparison to other groups that have...
Show moreRecent molecular phylogenies have shown Foraminifera to comprise a distinct clade of basal mitochondrial eukaryotes that diverged relatively early in the evolution of eukaryotes. The significance of the haplo-diploid foraminiferal life cycle is reinterpreted within this phylogenetic context using information compiled from the published literature, field and laboratory observations. A new concept of the foraminiferal life cycle is presented that facilitates comparison to other groups that have independently evolved similar life histories., The Soritacea comprise a monophyletic clade within the Foraminifera, Recent and fossil species of which inhabit shallow-water, tropical to subtropical reef-associated environments. As a group, living Soritaceans are characterized by their association with a diverse array of photosymbionts (rhodophytes, chlorophytes, dinophytes). A phylogenetic (cladistic) analysis was performed on 54 species of fossil and Recent Soritacea using a data set of 195 binary characters derived exclusively from morphological features of the test, such as gross test morphology, surface ultrastructure and internal partitions. Characters such as endosymbiont type, ecological habitat and ontogenetic transformations were not incorporated into the data matrix. Seven outgroup taxa were included in the analysis and characters were polarized using the outgroup method. An heuristic search strategy conducted in PAUP yielded a single most parsimonious tree of 450 steps, with a CI = 0.433 and a RI = 0.851., Eleven new species (three fossil and eight Recent) and eleven new clades are described. All higher taxa are defined following the recommendations of the new PhyloCode (http://wwwohio.edu/phylocode) and a phylogenetic classification scheme of Soritacea is presented. Soritacea is shown to be the sister group to Nanicella, a group of fusulinacean foraminiferans. Internal structure appears to have been independently derived within several different subclades of Soritacea. The inclusion of fossil taxa in the analysis is shown to be essential for resolving relationships within the Archaiasinina and Soritida subclades., Character optimization techniques indicate that photosymbiosis is the plesiomorphic condition for the entire clade Soritacea. Endosymbiont type appears to have changed at least twice during the evolutionary history of the clade. In the Soritida subclade, the shift from chlorophyte to dinophyte endosymbionts is accompanied by a change in habitat from free-living to attached to firm substrata. A subsequent peramorphic trend in development is correlated with a shift in habitat from attached to non-phytal to attached to phytal substrata. It is hypothesized that competition for space on rapidly growing phytal substrata, such as macroalgae and seagrasses, selected for the progressive loss of the early coiling stages and the earlier onset of annular chambers observed in the ontogeny of megalospheric tests.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2000, 2000
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/40939
- Subject Headings
- Biology, Oceanography, Paleontology, 0416, 0418
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Cosmology and personal experience: Representations of the sacred landscape in Salasaca, Ecuador.
- Creator
- Corr, Rachel E., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Abstract/Description
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Representations of the sacred landscape influence, and are influenced by, personal religious experiences. Drawing on contributions from symbolic anthropology, cognitive anthropology, and human geography, this thesis explores the dynamic co-creation of spatial cosmology and individual experience. Spatial cosmology includes cultural constructions of the cosmos, orientation, directionality, movement, geography and topography, values, beliefs, symbols, and rituals that communicate information...
Show moreRepresentations of the sacred landscape influence, and are influenced by, personal religious experiences. Drawing on contributions from symbolic anthropology, cognitive anthropology, and human geography, this thesis explores the dynamic co-creation of spatial cosmology and individual experience. Spatial cosmology includes cultural constructions of the cosmos, orientation, directionality, movement, geography and topography, values, beliefs, symbols, and rituals that communicate information about the landscape. Personal experience refers to human action and agency, and how people interpret their lived, embodied experiences., Cultural knowledge of sacred places is embedded in various domains, including festivity, performance, narrative, textile production, healing, private rituals, and near death experiences. Each chapter explores the spatial information embedded in these domains and how individuals interpret and articulate this information. The analysis includes how notions of collective memory and ethnic identity are reproduced through the ritual marking of sacred space and ethnic territory. It explores the institutionalization of knowledge about sacred geography. Political leaders demand that festival sponsors answer specific questions about sacred places in a public competition, thus creating a new domain, a new source of knowledge, for transmitting information about the landscape. The section on near-death experience narratives reveals the complex ways by which people combine native Andean cosmologies, historical experiences, colonial images, and senses of place. The analysis also explores the relationship between the landscape, illness, and healing., A central concern of the thesis is how people understand the transformative powers of the landscape and the significance of that power at the level of individual belief. I conclude with an argument that we must continue to explore how individuals mediate, reproduce, and change cultural patterns. Cultural patterns influence not only what people say, but also how they experience the landscape. Cosmological aspects of the landscape, I show, are created and recreated through experience, social interaction, memory, and narrative.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2000, 2000
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/40938
- Subject Headings
- Religion, General, Anthropology, Cultural
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Attentional effects in visual search for chromatic targets.
- Creator
- Monnier, Patrick., Wright State University
- Abstract/Description
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In this study, several issues pertinent to a better understanding of visual perception were investigated using an accuracy visual search task. Effects of visual attention on detection thresholds for chromatic targets were investigated by varying the number of stimulus elements and by introducing chromatic uncertainty. These attentional effects were modeled using two popular models of visual attention: A capacity unlimited model of attention postulating attention can be deployed over all the...
Show moreIn this study, several issues pertinent to a better understanding of visual perception were investigated using an accuracy visual search task. Effects of visual attention on detection thresholds for chromatic targets were investigated by varying the number of stimulus elements and by introducing chromatic uncertainty. These attentional effects were modeled using two popular models of visual attention: A capacity unlimited model of attention postulating attention can be deployed over all the stimulus elements without limit and a capacity limited model postulating attention to be a limited process. Both models make the assumption that elements in a display are represented independently. Because the spatial separation between stimulus elements is a variable likely to affect the nature of the stimulus representation, detection thresholds were measured at several spatial separations in the first experiments. In Experiment 2, chromatic uncertainty was introduced to determine which models predicted the effects best. In Experiment 3, conditions likely to reveal higher order chromatic mechanisms were tested. As in Experiment 2, chromatic uncertainty was introduced to test several models of color vision. The procedure for all three experiments was a two-interval forced-choice visual search task in which observers searched for targets differing from the white distractors in color only. Results of Experiment 1 showed that while widely spaced elements were represented independently, elements relatively close in proximity violated the independence assumption. Results of Experiment 2 supported a capacity unlimited model of attention. Furthermore, the uncertainty effects were successfully modeled as an increase in the total number of monitored signals. In other words, the results support the notion that spatial and chromatic signals can be traded-off without affecting, detection thresholds. Finally, the results Experiment 3 again supported a capacity unlimited model. Furthermore, the results were modeled using a higher order chromatic mechanism model suggesting observers monitored two cardinal and one higher order chromatic mechanisms simultaneously.
Show less - Date Issued
- 1999, 1999
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/40937
- Subject Headings
- Psychology, Experimental, Psychology, Cognitive
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Entertaining lesbians: Celebrity, visibility, personhood, politics.
- Creator
- Gever, Martha., City University of New York
- Abstract/Description
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The phenomenon of lesbian celebrity---instances where a celebrity is known to be and does not deny being a lesbian---like celebrity in general, crystallizes moral definitions and redefinitions of personhood. Yet for lesbians, this cultural form takes on a decidedly political import, insofar as questions concerning social membership are raised with every appearance of a lesbian celebrity and the ensuing controversy. Certainly, the entire category of celebrity is extremely mutable and telling...
Show moreThe phenomenon of lesbian celebrity---instances where a celebrity is known to be and does not deny being a lesbian---like celebrity in general, crystallizes moral definitions and redefinitions of personhood. Yet for lesbians, this cultural form takes on a decidedly political import, insofar as questions concerning social membership are raised with every appearance of a lesbian celebrity and the ensuing controversy. Certainly, the entire category of celebrity is extremely mutable and telling of more general features of social organization and cultural reproduction. But from the perspective of lesbian celebrity, these characteristics demand an inquiry into various intersections of popular conceptions of sexuality and gender with the representational practices and structures of the mass media. Moreover, these encounters are dynamic and thus point toward various cultural changes that work upon and may alter the definitions of homosexuality and femininity, the two factors that conjoin in configurations of lesbians and lesbianism., The dissertation considers five aspects of lesbian celebrity. The first chapter deals with visibility politics and the place accorded celebrities as symbolic representatives of lesbian personhood. Another considers the cultural, economic, and technological changes in the past two centuries that provide the preconditions for lesbian celebrity. A third examines the opposition to celebrity during the formative years of the gay and women's liberation movements in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and its effective reversal due to a politics of self-invention, which involves attention to ones self-image. Another analyzes revisionist attempts to find precedents far lesbian celebrity in the biographies of women who lived before contemporary definitions of lesbian identity existed, or before the concept of liberation was applied to homosexuality. The final chapter investigates various techniques for image management that have been deployed in the process of producing lesbian celebrity, as exemplified by Martina Navratilova.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2000, 2000
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/40936
- Subject Headings
- Biography, Women's Studies, Sociology, Social Structure and Development, Mass Communications
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Generic Galois extensions for groups of order p('3).
- Creator
- Blue, Meredith Patricia., The University of Texas at Austin
- Abstract/Description
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The existence of a generic Galois extension for a given group G over a field F is equivalent being able to lift the extension over local rings as well as pull the extension back to dense subfields of a complete field. The extensions are intimately related to Noether's problem, a method of attack for the Inverse Galois problem. In 1987 David Saltman showed the existence of generic Galois extensions for groups of order p3 for p odd over a ground field containing pth roots of unity. In this...
Show moreThe existence of a generic Galois extension for a given group G over a field F is equivalent being able to lift the extension over local rings as well as pull the extension back to dense subfields of a complete field. The extensions are intimately related to Noether's problem, a method of attack for the Inverse Galois problem. In 1987 David Saltman showed the existence of generic Galois extensions for groups of order p3 for p odd over a ground field containing pth roots of unity. In this paper Saltman's result is extended to include base fields without a pth root of unity. In particular generic extensions axe shown to exist over Q .
Show less - Date Issued
- 2000, 2000
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/40935
- Subject Headings
- Mathematics
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Isolated horizons and black hole mechanics.
- Creator
- Beetle, Christopher, The Pennsylvania State University
- Abstract/Description
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The zeroth and first laws of black hole mechanics are traditionally formulated in terms of a class of stationary space-times containing event horizons. However, this class of solutions is too restrictive to include a variety of physically interesting situations. This thesis describes the extension of the zeroth and first laws to a much broader class of space-times containing isolated horizons. A space-time representing a black hole which is itself in equilibrium, but whose exterior contains...
Show moreThe zeroth and first laws of black hole mechanics are traditionally formulated in terms of a class of stationary space-times containing event horizons. However, this class of solutions is too restrictive to include a variety of physically interesting situations. This thesis describes the extension of the zeroth and first laws to a much broader class of space-times containing isolated horizons. A space-time representing a black hole which is itself in equilibrium, but whose exterior contains radiation, admits such a horizon. Using Hamiltonian techniques, quasi-local definitions of the "extrinsic parameters" of a black hole---the quantities which are related by the first law---are formulated for generic isolated horizons. These definitions reveal a remarkable connection between the first law and the classical Hamiltonian formalism.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2000, 2000
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/40934
- Subject Headings
- Physics, Astronomy and Astrophysics, 0606
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Some problems in operator theory and the geometry of Banach spaces.
- Creator
- Hoim, Terje., Kent State University
- Abstract/Description
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One of the fundamental problems in Operator Theory is the Invariant Subspace Problem asking whether every bounded linear operator on an infinite dimensional complex Banach space admits a closed nontrivial invariant subspace. The study of invariant subspaces can be seen as a study of particular properties of orbits of operators. We study the orbits of a class of isometries of L1[0, 1]. Every isometry of Lp, 1 ≤ p
Show moreOne of the fundamental problems in Operator Theory is the Invariant Subspace Problem asking whether every bounded linear operator on an infinite dimensional complex Banach space admits a closed nontrivial invariant subspace. The study of invariant subspaces can be seen as a study of particular properties of orbits of operators. We study the orbits of a class of isometries of L1[0, 1]. Every isometry of Lp, 1 ≤ p < infinity, p ≠ 2, can be written as Tf = h(f ∘ tau). When tau is not measure preserving, we show that the set of functions f in L1[0, 1] for which the orbit of f under the isometry T is equivalent to the usual canonical basis of l1 is an open dense set. A similar problem is also studied for other classical Banach spaces., In 1996 P. Enflo introduced the concept of extremal vectors and their connection to the Invariant Subspace Problem. We continue studying the properties and behaviour of backward minimal vectors, give some new formulas and improve results from papers by S. Ansari and P. Enflo., Finally we turn to the application of Functional Analysis and the geometry of Banach spaces to mathematical economics. We study the simplest form of economic activity called a pure exchange economy together with the existence of equilibrium prices problem. More precisely, we study how well the equilibrium price for the subeconomy En approximates the equilibrium price for a larger economy EN when these two economies have the same distribution of agents' characteristics.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2000, 2000
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/40933
- Subject Headings
- Mathematics
- Format
- Document (PDF)