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Dragtime: The Queering of Modern Film and Television through Drag Culture Integration in the 20th and 21st Centuries
No full textM.A.Over the course of this research paper, I discuss the importance of gender fluidity and the influence of drag culture through film and television. I start with language and the use of ungendered pronouns in many languages around the world, to the inclusion of a non-binary or third gender on various forms of national ID and even birth certificates. The world has changed much over the past few decades; many gender inclusion efforts can be attributed to drag and the work of LGBTQIA+ members, including actors, activists, filmmakers, and playwrights who have supported and implemented drag into their work. Drag culture is even more relevant now than ever as gender fluidity and genderqueer people are more widely recognized and accepted. While discussing the history of drag, it goes without saying that the work of Judith Butler and Susan Sontag must be included. I delve into "Gender Trouble" and "Notes on Camp" to kick off our conversation of gender identity and stage presence shaping the history of film and television around the world. From there, a brief history of the themes of drag and cross-dressing on stage in many forms of theatre, including Japanese kabuki theatre and of course in Shakespeare comedies. Finally, the history of drag within film – starting with "Viktor und Viktoria" (1933) before getting into the cult classics such as "Some Like It Hot" (1959) and "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" (1975). All of these films have shaped the industry and remain to be influential even decades after their release. I conclude the thesis by summing up the previous sections, and recognizing that drag has been a theme integrated into culture over several centuries; largely normalized and revered for its influence on film, television, stage, and music. I invite the reader to think of the many films and television shows they have fondly watched that implemented drag culture
Social Ontology and Social Normativity
No full textPh.D.Many recent accounts of the ontology of groups, institutions, and practices have touched upon the normative or deontic dimensions of social reality (e.g., social obligations, claims, permissions, prohibitions, authority, and immunity), as distinct from any specifically moral values or obligations. For the most part, however, the ontology of such socio-deontic phenomena has not received the attention it deserves. In what sense might a social obligation or a claim exist? What is the ontological status of such an obligation (e.g., is it an entity in its own right)? And how do people come to have social obligations or permissions in the first place? In this dissertation, I argue that such social-deontic phenomena can be accounted for ontologically in terms of the existence of shared prescriptive representational content that is backed by collectively held dispositions to monitor for compliance, and to punish (sanction, blame, chide, look unfavorably upon) those who fail to comply.**To request an accessible version of the file(s) associated with this item, contact [email protected]. Please include the item's persistent URL [http://hdl.handle.net/. . .] in your request.*
Die Radikalen Tasten (2019): Concerto for Organ with Keyboard Ensemble
No full textPh.D.There is a Korean protest and grass-roots activist song called "Marching for Our Beloved" which was originally written for the spirit wedding of an activist who died in the Gwangju (Kwangju) Democratic Uprising on May 18, 1980, and his beloved, who was also a labor rights activist. Over time, the song has represented the symbolic significance of the grief of those who died fighting for their democratic rights and the numerous victims from the massacre in May 1980 in Gwangju. Furthermore, the song has been popular for activists and protesters in other Asian countries, including those participating in the on-going Hong Kong protests this year. However, this song has been the cause of conflict between progressives and conservatives over the years in South Korea, with the latter reluctant to designate it as the official anthem for every annual May 18 ceremony. I strongly believe this message should be spread further and wider with old and new musical languages; Die Radikalen Tasten (2019) concerto for organ with keyboard ensemble, incorporated a quotation of the original tune of "Marching for Our Beloved" and the harmonic structure is based on the tune, but worked in microtonality. I became fascinated by the detuned like effect produced on the organ when its stops are pulled slowly. Also, certain combinations of stops with the tremolo feature create an electronic like timbre (which you wouldn't expect from conventional organ music) with the reinforcement of harpsichord & vibraphone and extended techniques on piano.**To request an accessible version of the file(s) associated with this item, contact [email protected]. Please include the item's persistent URL [http://hdl.handle.net/. . .] in your request.*
Reinforcement Learning and Optimal Control in Complex Social Systems
No full textPh.D.Complex social systems are composed of interconnected individuals whose interactions result in group behaviors. Sequential decision making in a real-world complex system has many applications, including road traffic management, epidemic prevention, and information dissemination. However, optimizing the decisions in such real-world complex system is difficult because of the high-dimensional and non-linear system dynamics, and the exploding state and action spaces for the decisionmaker. Sequential decision making in complex social systems remain a hot research topic and there are many existing works around it. There are mainly two frameworks of that in complex social systems. One is the single-agent framework which view all the components of the system as a whole and optimize the utility function of the entire system. The other one is the multi-agent framework which view each component as a self-interested agent and each agent optimizes its own utility function. The challenges of solving sequential decision making problems in real-world systems are the huge amount of individuals of different species, the high-dimensional state-action spaces, the complex state transitions, the partial observability, the sophisticated spatial-temporal dependences, the lacking a high-fidelity reward function to reflect the real world need, and the expensiveness in interacting with the environment. We propose to develop reinforcement learning and optimal control algorithms that can effectively and efficiently solve complex social systems decision making problems. For the single-agent framework, we firstly consider a baseline case where the system dynamics and the reward function are known. In this case, we will develop a partially observable discrete event decision process to capture the system dynamics succinctly, and develop a variational inference algorithm with Bethe entropy approximation to tractably solve the optimization problem. We then consider a more realistic scenario with unknown system dynamics and unknown reward functions, which we formulated as an imitation learning problem. To provide better optimization signals and being more robust, we propose to develop a variational kernel learning algorithm to solve this problem. For the multi-agent framework, we consider a real-world scenario where the system dynamics and reward functions are unknown, which we formulated as a multi-agent imitation learning problem. To cope with the exploding dimensionality problem and to maintain scalability, we propose to develop a mean-field kernel algorithm to solve this problem.**To request an accessible version of the file(s) associated with this item, contact [email protected]. Please include the item's persistent URL [http://hdl.handle.net/. . .] in your request.*
School Choice Policy and Social Inequity Within an Urban School District
No full textPh.D.The 1960's educational desegregation movement sought to remedy racial inequities within school districts, with mandatory school busing as a means to reduce racial segregation and enhance educational equality throughout the U.S. More recently, the 2002 No Children Left Behind Act encouraged parents, especially in low-income neighborhoods, to choose better performing schools rather than their child simply being relegated to the nearest neighborhood school. According to school choice proponents, choice could reduce social stratification and improve educational outcomes. Since then, many U.S. school districts have adopted some form of school choice, whether allowing students to transfer to another school within their own district, providing vouchers to private schools, or creating new public options like charter schools. My dissertation extends school choice research by assessing the implications of school choice within traditional public schools, using multivariate analyses of student registration, placement, and academic performance data for students enrolled in an urban school district located in the North east region of the United States. The first chapter describes the theoretical premises supporting school choice, reviews the research literature on how parents with varying backgrounds select schools for their children, and outlines the city's history of school segregation. Empirically, I assess characteristics of the school choice application and placement processes for the District's kindergartners and ninth graders using eight years of pooled data. This analysis provides the foundation for assessing the relationship between choice and subsequent academic outcomes. In the outcomes analysis, I compare state assessment scores and other student outcomes longitudinally, for both the kindergarten and ninth grade populations. My findings show that the choice of school was not consistently associated with enhanced academic outcomes. However, school stability – staying at the same school – was consistently positive. The sociological implications and policy concerns associated with school choice suggest additional trajectories for future research and could also inform practical policy innovations.**To request an accessible version of the file(s) associated with this item, contact [email protected]. Please include the item's persistent URL [http://hdl.handle.net/. . .] in your request.*
The Usability and Rhetoric of Adobe Tutorials
No full textM.A.Adobe Dreamweaver is a program that helps users build websites that can be quite complex, especially since its end result – a functioning website – needs to be complex. For Dreamweaver to be usable, it must be learnable and the accompanying support and learning materials must also be usable. The usability of a product not only depends on the product itself but also any accompanying documents. Don Norman explains that the product and all information about that product make up the system image (Norman 31). However, for learning material to be usable, it must be user-centered, meaning the designers have to not only think of the user while writing the instructions but also predict how they will use the instructions. While some will use Adobe’s learning material, others will use User Generated Content (UGC), which can exist on social media and within a participatory culture. Adobe’s learning material is not user-centered and was not created to help users learn but just for requirements sake. UGC, while still having problems with usability and authority, is user-centered and allows the user to not only give feedback but also participate in the learning material. This makes UGC far more usable than Adobe’s learning material.**To request an accessible version of the file(s) associated with this item, contact [email protected]. Please include the item's persistent URL [http://hdl.handle.net/. . .] in your request.*
Effect of Preshaking on Cyclic Resistance of Clean Sand – A Laminar Box Study
No full textM.S.Earthquake-induced liquefaction of saturated loose sand deposits is a major cause of damage to the built environment. Strong shaking earthquakes are preceded by mild or weak shakes. They are also followed by mild or weak shakes. The effects of mild shakes on cyclic resistance of sands to resist liquefaction due to future strong shaking remains a question. Recent studies by Dobry et al. (2019), based on a series of large-scale laminar box shake table experiments on 5m deep 'fresh' deposit without any 'aging' effects (Huang 2015), indicate mild shakings tend to strengthen the soil. This thesis reexamines this idea by looking at the same laminar box experimental data. The focus is on the effects of multiple preshakings on the cumulative dissipated energy per unit volume of soil during the shakings to reach a reference liquefaction-threshold shear strain level of 0.01%. This reference strain was chosen in this study as it is known that it's only after this threshold strain level, onset of large pore pressures develops, and liquefaction occurs (Dobry et al. 1982). This study focused on the soil response at mid depth in the laminar box. The shaking experiments (Huang 2015) involved seven repetitive shaking series. Each series consisted of a strong shaking (at 0.15 g peak base acceleration, 15 cycles), followed by 5 successive weak shakings (at 0.03 g peak base acceleration for a short duration), followed by a mild shaking (0.03g peak base acceleration, 15 cycles). This series sequence was repeated seven times on the same soil deposit. It is found that, for medium dense sands, a series of weak shakings following a strong shaking appear to strengthen the soil. The dissipated energy up to the threshold strain (0.01%) increases steadily for each successive weak shaking. The maximum strain reached, and the maximum pore pressure generated during shaking decreases steadily. During subsequent strong shaking, immediately following the weak shakes, a larger amount of energy is dissipated to reach the threshold strain level compared to the energy dissipated in the prior strong shaking event immediately preceding the weak shakes. This tendency repeats for subsequent such sequence of shakings involving multiple weak shakes followed by a strong shaking.**To request an accessible version of the file(s) associated with this item, contact [email protected]. Please include the item's persistent URL [http://hdl.handle.net/. . .] in your request.*
Diver Physiology and Performance: Effects of Hydration Status, Hyperoxia, and Cold Stress
No full textPh.D.The series of dissertation studies were designed to explore a common special warfare exposure to long, sedentary dives followed by land-based activity. The first goal was to examine the effects of hydration status, breathing gasses, and cold stress on post-immersion aerobic exercise performance. The second goal was to explore the mechanisms that contribute to carbon dioxide (CO2) retention during diving. The first dissertation study revealed that consuming fluids while diving augments immersion-induced diuresis. Additionally, this study showed that thermoneutral head-out water immersion (HOWI) results in mild hypohydration, which has minimal impact on aerobic exercise performance. The second study exposed that cold (10°C) HOWI worsens dehydration, but fluid replacement in this scenario did not restore aerobic exercise performance. Rather, relative hypothermia and deep tissue cooling had negative effects on high-intensity exercise. The third study revealed that immersion-induced hypohydration augments cardiovascular strain during a 60-minute loaded ruck-march and attenuates 5 km time trial performance. However, hyperoxia does not appear to further reduce performance. The fourth and fifth studies examined the widespread hypothesis that an attenuated brief, hypercapnic ventilatory response (CBCO2) contributes to CO2 retention in diving. The fourth study revealed that breathing hyperbaric air or 100% O2 in a dry pressurized environment did not reduce CBCO2. The final study showed that CBCO2 is unchanged during both thermoneutral and cold water immersion. Together, these findings indicate that other mechanisms mediate CO2 retention in diving (e.g., increased dead space). In summary, this dissertation contains many novel findings that further our understanding of the implications of diving on post-immersion performance and the mechanisms contributing to CO2 retention in diving.**To request an accessible version of the file(s) associated with this item, contact [email protected]. Please include the item's persistent URL [http://hdl.handle.net/. . .] in your request.*
Detection of Significantly Perturbed Subnetworks in Cancer
No full textPh.D.Identifying cancer driver genes and pathways is a central task of cancer research. The mainstay gene-level analysis does not provide sufficient statistical power to detect rarely mutated but functionally important genes and typically results in a list of putative driver genes without a unified theme of biological processes. A promising approach to overcoming the above issues is to perform de novo path- way analysis by overlaying mutation data onto a protein-protein interaction (PPI) network and detecting functional modules that are significantly disrupted in cancer. With the accumulation of protein interaction information, pathway analysis has become a major research topic in systems biology. Computationally, detecting cancer pathways is essentially a combinatorial optimization problem, which is much more difficult than statistical tests of mutational abundance. Although significant efforts have been made in the past two decades, several key issues are outstanding, including those related to detect functionally homogenous subnet- works in a scale-free biological network, to control the false discovery rates (FDRs) of identified subnetworks, to achieve provably optimal solutions, to integrate genetic data from multiple platforms, and to solve the computational complexity. This dissertation proposes a novel algorithm, referred to as FDRnet, to address the aforementioned longstanding issues that have challenged the research community in de novo pathway analysis. To overcome the hurdle of assessing the statistical significance of detected subnetworks, we propose a novel FDR definition for subnetwork identification, which also facilitates the integration of multi-omics data. By using the new definition, we formulate the subnetwork identification problem as a mixed-integer linear programming problem, using a given upper bound of false discovery rate (FDR) as a budget constraint and minimizing conductance scores to find dense subgraphs around seed genes. To address computational issues, several novel algorithmic strategies are also developed. A large-scale benchmark study was performed on both simulation and cancer data. FDRnet significantly outperformed existing approaches in terms of computational efficiency and the ability to detect functionally homogenous subnetworks in a scale-free biological network, to control FDRs of detected subnetworks, to provide provably optimal solutions, and to integrate multi-omics data. By overcoming the limitations of existing approaches, FDRnet can facilitate the detection of key functional pathways in cancer and other genetic diseases. With the accumulation of gene- interaction information and genomic data, we believe that our method can find wide applications in human disease research.**To request an accessible version of the file(s) associated with this item, contact [email protected]. Please include the item's persistent URL [http://hdl.handle.net/. . .] in your request.*
Blocking Brain Tumor Necrosis Factor to Alleviate Persistent Inflammatory Pain
No full textM.S.Research on tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF) has well established its role in pain. Following an injury, TNF is secreted by inflammatory cells, as well as other cell types. TNF sensitizes neurons via increasing glutamate causing them to become hyper-excitable, which is involved in the pathogenesis of chronic pain. Our lab has established that decreasing TNF levels in the brain leads to an analgesic effect in neuropathic pain, a type of chronic pain that develops central sensitization. Furthermore, we have showed that in a chronic pain model an increase of TNF inhibits endogenous analgesia via decreasing the amount of norepinephrine available to activate the descending inhibitory pain pathway. Whether these same mechanisms apply to other types of pain has yet to be established. We propose that downregulating TNF would be effective in alleviating pain in another model, the formalin model. The formalin model of pain is a persistent pain model that produces a biphasic response with a transient early phase and a tonic inflammatory phase, which has a central sensitization component. Studies in our lab have shown that clonidine prevented the tonic phase of formalin concomitant with decreasing brain TNF levels. Therefore, we hypothesized that perispinally injecting TNF antibody to directly reduce levels of TNF in the brain will reduce the tonic phase of formalin-induced pain. In this study, we injected male and female Sprague-Dawley rats perispinally with anti-TNF agents (TNF antibody or INB03, a soluble TNF inhibitor) followed by a subcutaneous injection of formalin into the right dorsal hind paw. In order to quantify the pain, scoring was based on flinching of the injected paw and was compared to control animals. Rats were also tested for short-term memory using the novel object recognition test, since pain has been shown to negatively affect cognitive function. At the end of the behavioral assessment the rats were euthanized, and brain and spinal cord were harvested for analysis of TNF levels in a bioassay. Results indicate that directly blocking brain TNF reduces pain behavior and improves cognition in the formalin pain model.**To request an accessible version of the file(s) associated with this item, contact [email protected]. Please include the item's persistent URL [http://hdl.handle.net/. . .] in your request.*