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Animus, Part II: In the Caldera
No full textIn the town English town of Bath, there is a UNESCO heritage site called the Roman Baths. Here the Romans built and expanded on the hot spring nestled in the Mendip Hills where the locals worshipped. The Romans also built upon the legend of the Suli, the goddess of this sacred spring. The Romans left Britain in 410 A.D., and with their departure, the baths and temples returned to the mire. My thesis is an excerpt from a broader work that explores what became of the Suli and other gods like her. The work revolves around the protagonist, Aster Dale, a new Suli who can time travel through the water. This work aims to explore themes such as kairos, or timing, opportunity, chance and mischance, or the qualitative aspects of time, versus chronos, linear, chronological, quantifiable time, layered into Aster’s search for the meaning of home when one is both god and human. These pages are Aster reflecting on her formative years spent in a caldera learning to use her gifts after her mother has gone missing
Paraphrasis and Cento: A Comparative Analysis of Late Antique Greek and Latin Versification
No full textThis dissertation investigates the nature of biblical versification in Late Antiquity and analyzes specific works in the genres of paraphrasis and cento penned by Latin- and Greek-speaking poets. While much scholarly research has focused on individual works, this project adopts a comparative approach and examines the goals and techniques by which these authors retold biblical stories using words and images borrowed from Vergil and Homer. The analysis demonstrates that the authors of cento and paraphrasis created these works with numerous motives and were at once poets, theologians, and literary scholars.
After a brief introduction, chapter 1 offers a discussion of versification, specifically its Classical origins, evolution, and contemporary reception. It also analyzes the prefaces to certain paraphrases and centos to gauge the authors’ stated ambitions and how they understand the genres in which they are operating. The following chapter launches into the first of a series of case studies analyzing Greek and Latin versifications in parallel. The first case study consists of two centos written by female poets on the life of Jesus Christ, Proba’s fourth-century Cento Vergilianus and Eudocia’s fifth-century Homerocentones. Despite their different languages and contexts, the two authors create remarkably similar poems using identical methods, namely a complex web of intertextual references that provides additional layers of meaning to the biblical characters and events. In chapter 3, the analysis turns to the second pair of case studies: Nonnus of Panopolis’ fifth-century Paraphrasis of the Gospel of John and Sedulius’ fifth-century Paschale Carmen. Though both paraphrasts have similar goals, they use varying methods to accomplish them. While Nonnus of Panopolis provides meaning through the use of allusive vocabulary, Sedulius intervenes more drastically in the structure of his narrative and employs epic imagery to convey his theological message. The final chapter studies outliers such as Ausonius’ fourth-century Cento Nuptialis, Eudocia’s Life of Saint Cyprian, and two Latin Lives of Saint Martin of Tours. This examination demonstrates that these non-biblical paraphrases follow the examples of their biblical counterparts very closely in their methods. It further bears out the tendencies observed in chapter 3, which found Latin authors more eager to intervene in structure rather than in word use.
Through this examination, this dissertation demonstrates that Late Antique religious versification was used for highly complex theological and literary purposes. Greek and Latin authors alike were immersed in a Classical literary legacy and felt empowered to present their own theological ideas in a genre that delegates much of the responsibility for interpretation to the reader. With these works, they exemplify the intricate contemporary coexistence of pagan literary tradition alongside evolving Christian belief
Electrochemical Performance of Mixed Redox-Active Organic Molecules in Redox Flow Batteries
No full textDesigning electrolytes based on mixture of different organic redox active molecules brings the opportunity of enhancing the volumetric energy density of flow batteries and removes the requirement of high solubility for individual organic species in the mixture. In the present work, we conduct computational and experimental analysis to investigate the electrochemical performance of mixed redox-active organic molecules. A zero-dimensional transient model is employed to investigate the changes in the half-cell potential and the concentrations and partial currents of individual redox reactions in a mixture of organic molecules over time. The model demonstrates the effects of individual properties of species such as kinetic rate constants, mass transfer coefficients, concentration ratios and standard redox potentials and reports the effect of energy-losing homogenous chemical redox reaction on the voltage efficiency and concentration ratios of the mixed species. Pairs of anthraquinone negolyte species were selected for an experimental case study. A mixture of 2,6-N-TSAQ and 2,6-DHAQ showed 40% increase in the volumetric energy density compared to the performance of 2,6-DHAQ alone. Based on the results of the experimental and computational analysis, we propose guidelines for the design of suitable mixed redox-active organic species
Brief of Amici Curiae Nine Library Organizations and 218 Librarians In Support of Defendant-Appellant Internet Archive
No full textCDL is based in copyright law and respects the rights of copyright holders by acquiring the works legally, while also broadening access to the books that library systems purchase to build their collections. CDL is a well-established practice in the library community. It is a programmatic tool that represents a reasonable, productive, and viable pathway for libraries to focus on their traditional and well-established role in providing access to their acquired collections. The district court’s finding that books loaned via CDL would replace the market for commercially licensed eBooks was flawed. Books loaned via CDL have distinct features and purposes and are not a substitute for commercially licensed eBooks.
The district court also erred in its finding that the Internet Archive’s Open Libraries program is a “commercial activity” for purposes of fair use. Instead, a library is a non-profit organization that provides access to knowledge and cultural heritage, which is the distinctly non-commercial mission of all libraries.Version of Recor
Race, Sovereignty, and the Lineages of Federalism in South Asia, 1900-1950
No full textThe age of national self-determination, which conventionally establishes the system of post-imperial nation-states, begins with the founding of the League of Nations after the First World War. The development of responsible government in British India in 1919 — particularly the principle of “dyarchy” or dual government run in the provinces jointly by Indians and the British — is thought to be a progressive, if inadequate, measure in this era of self-determination. But it has not been noticed that the same imperial officials who formulated dyarchy had previously segregated and disenfranchised non-whites in South Africa. This dissertation maps the hitherto unnoticed connections between race, sovereignty, and structures of federalism in British India. I show that imperial administrators like Lionel Curtis and Philip Kerr– who racially segregated the city of Johannesburg and later formed the “Round Table” group – devised the “federal” structure of British India from 1919 to 1935, keeping financial and military power in white hands while transferring the burden of administration to Indians in provincial administrations. At the same time, I analyze how anticolonial federalist politics—expressed in vernacular pamphlets, cartoons, and literary and artistic works— challenged this racial logic of governance and developed competing models of sharing sovereignty across cultural differences. These two lineages of federalism, racial-imperial and anticolonial, I argue, continued after decolonization, transforming a colonial relation of racial inequity to a post-colonial relationship of constitutional inequity between the center and the provinces.
The structure of federalism in colonial India, put bluntly, was a story of whites ruling the center and Indians ruling the provinces: a system that I call “racialized devolution.” Arguing against the conventional view of Indian federalism as merely “asymmetric” or “scalar” sovereignty, I uncover how segregationist practices were reworked to thwart the power of Indian provinces. The first half of this dissertation, focussing on the period between 1900 and 1930, maps the imperial and anticolonial lineages of federalism in South Asia. In the first three chapters, I examine the role of the color line in colonial India; the connected making of racialized devolution in South Africa and British India; and the anticolonial challenge to dyarchy by Indian leaders, especially Chitta Ranjan Das in Bengal. The second half of the dissertation analyzes various fields of federal relations between 1930 and 1950: racial capitalism and the making of federal finance in the aftermath of the Great Depression, focussing on the role of central bankers like Henry Strakosch and Otto Niemeyer; the question of provincial sovereignty, especially in relation to the princely states, in the Government of India Act of 1935; and the perpetuation of inequity between the center and the states in the 1950 constitution of India.
In connecting racial segregation in South Africa with federalism in colonial India, my work charts out a new history of political exclusion in modern South Asia. Historians of South Asia have not noticed the relations of racialized devolution encoded in the federal structures of the world’s largest democracy, while global histories of race and federation have mostly left India out of their accounts. By analyzing hitherto-unexplored archives of private papers, institutional records, and vernacular archives of anticolonialism, my project places racial inequity at the center of the debate over space, sovereignty and federalism in colonial and post-colonial South Asia
Alcohol, Cancer and Cardiometabolic Health
No full textAlcoholic beverages rank among the most popular drinks worldwide. While the adverse effects of heavy alcohol consumption are well-established, health effects of moderate consumption—defined as one drink or less per day for women and two drinks or less for men—have long been the subject of controversy. For instance, moderate wine consumption is considered a healthy component in Mediterranean diet, based on potential benefits on cardiovascular system, whereas some guidelines recommend abstaining from alcohol altogether for cancer prevention. The biological plausibility of alcohol benefiting health lies in ethanol's supposed ability to improve blood lipid profiles, reduce insulin resistance, and modulate systemic inflammation. Polyphenols, found in alcoholic beverages, are also known for their anti-inflammatory and antioxidative properties. These mechanisms play crucial roles in both cardiometabolic conditions and cancer development. On the other hand, the first metabolite of ethanol, acetaldehyde, is carcinogenic. Therefore, the dose-response relationship between alcohol and different health outcomes, influenced collectively by these mechanisms, requires meticulous investigation. Examining associations between alcohol consumption and health outcomes in observational setting face several challenges: confounding by other lifestyle factors and socioeconomic status, reverse causation as people quitting drinking due to illness, and modification by drinking frequency, beverage choice, drinking with meals or not. Long-term changes in alcohol consumption further complicate the analysis. The Nurse’s Health Study (NHS) and Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS) serve as great resources for addressing these challenges as they have comprehensive covariates assessment, information collected on multifaceted drinking pattern, and have repeated assessment of alcohol intake.
In Chapter 1, our analysis confirmed that moderate alcohol intake was associated with favorable profiles of insulinemic/glycemic and inflammatory markers and blood lipids. Using generalized linear regression, we observed lower levels of hemoglobin A1c, tumor necrosis factor receptor 2 and intracellular adhesion molecule 1, along with higher adiponectin, HDL-cholesterol and lower triglyceride among drinkers compared to nondrinkers. These associations were more pronounced if the alcohol was consumed from wine (for inflammation) and done regularly (spreading over the week better than binge drinking).
In Chapter 2, we conducted Cox proportional hazard regression and found an inverse relationship between alcohol consumption and risk of type 2 diabetes regardless of whether nondrinkers or those consuming 0.1-4.9 g/day served as the reference group. This inverse association persisted after mitigating the impact of reverse causation and confounding through the exclusion of former drinkers, a series of sensitivity analyses, repeated assessments, and adjusting for time-varying confounders. Notably, we found that the inverse association was primarily driven by drinking frequency rather than the quantity consumed per drinking day, indicating that regular light drinking may confer the greatest benefits.
In Chapter 3, we focused on colorectal cancer (CRC), the etiology of which is particularly intertwined with insulin resistance and systemic inflammation. Our Cox regression analysis indicated a positive association between total alcohol intake and CRC. Individuals with both high drinking frequency and daily intake exhibited the highest CRC risk, suggesting total alcohol intake is the critical factor. We found the positive association was primarily driven by the consumption of liquor and beer rather than wine. Additionally, we utilized an analytic strategy to separate effects of alcohol intake over time. We estimated the time lag between alcohol consumption and CRC occurrence was around 8 to 12 years. Former drinkers did not experience a significant reduction in CRC risk even after 10 years of quitting or reducing consumption
How Teachers in Tier I General Education Classrooms Can Serve as Catalysts for Building Students’ Domain Knowledge and Fostering Reading Comprehension Transfer
No full textDomain-specific vocabulary knowledge is an important precursor to overall knowledge acquisition, which is essential to reading and comprehending grade-level texts. There are a number of malleable factors within the classroom that can be shaped by teachers and policy makers, yet additional empirical evidence is needed to uncover and evaluate those factors. In the following dissertation papers, I propose a series of studies that are interconnected and closely examine vocabulary development and acquisition. Each study aims to identify specific factors and mechanisms within the classroom that can be enhanced through intervention research.
In my first study, I use a mixed-methods design with confirmatory and exploratory aims. For the confirmatory portion, I leverage a large randomized controlled trial to test a conceptual model that examines whether and to what extent the effects of a two-year first- and second-grade content literacy intervention are mediated via the acquisition of domain-specific vocabulary knowledge over first and second grades. For the exploratory portion of the study, I use survey data and semi-structured interviews of 48 second-grade teachers to expand upon the quantitative findings to gain greater insight into the vocabulary practices of treatment and control teachers.
In the second study, I extend the findings from study 1 by designing an intervention that explores how structured supplements for a read aloud lesson can promote transfer in reading comprehension on measures of recall, near-transfer, and mid-transfer. Structured supplements can enhance a read aloud lesson by including concise and meaningful definitions and examples of word meanings, highlighting conceptual connections between words, engaging discussion prompts that get students talking about topics with key vocabulary, and an activity helping students see connections between known and new topics.
In my final study, I expand upon an existing measure of teachers’ knowledge of teaching vocabulary by adding additional items that focus on teaching domain-specific vocabulary and morphology. I use Item Response Theory (IRT) to examine the psychometric properties of the items and multilevel structural equation modeling (MSEM) to see if and to what extent the revised measure of teachers’ knowledge of teaching vocabulary correlates with student outcomes.
Combined, the three studies within this dissertation contribute to the field’s understanding of the role domain-specific vocabulary instruction plays in reading comprehension through descriptive, causal, and process evidence. Targeted shifts in instruction have the potential to improve educational outcomes for all students and these three studies contribute to understanding how the field can better support teachers and students
An upper bound on quantum capacity of unital quantum channels
No full textWe analyze the quantum capacity of a unital quantum channel, using ideas from the proof of near-optimality of Petz recovery map [Barnum and Knill 2000] and give an upper bound on the quantum capacity in terms of regularized output 2-norm of the channel. We also show that any code attempting to exceed this upper bound must incur large error in decoding, which can be viewed as a weaker version of the strong converse results for quantum capacity. As an application, we find nearly matching upper and lower bounds (up to an additive constant) on the quantum capacity of quantum expander channels. Using these techniques, we further conclude that the `mixture of random unitaries' channels arising in the construction of quantum expanders in [Hastings 2007] show a trend in multiplicativity of output 2-norm similar to that exhibited in [Montanaro 2013] for output ∞-norm of random quantum channels.Accepted Manuscrip
Comparison of Life Cycle Analysis Methodologies and Practical Applications in Textile Development
No full textLife Cycle Assessments are cradle-to-grave systems studies that are created from a variety of inputs that include the process of defining the study goals, scope and boundaries, data input sources and quality requirements, methodologies and assumptions, and allocation methods and cut off points. All these inputs have degrees of uncertainty related to them.
Traditional life cycle modeling uses process flow level data obtained from life cycle databases that produce global and regional level general averaged input data parameters. It is also acceptable to use primary data as inputs for modeling. The type of data and the methodology used to complete the LCA study should agree with the goal and scope as determined during the initial phase of the study. This study hypothesized that custom modeled unit flow level data that reflected process flow inputs at a sub-process production level from a textile manufacturing operation would decrease the inherent uncertainty in an LCA model by at least 50%. The study also considered the effect of variations in the scope, boundaries, and functional unit definitions on the LCA outputs.
The study found that uncertainty varied only an average of 10% between a base level and a unit flow level LCA model when evaluated using uncertainty analysis techniques. However, temporal, geographical, and technological data quality scores improved by approximately 50% when evaluated with a pedigree matrix.
The most significant variations in the end point impact values occurred in the categories of Water Impact, Damage to Ecosystems and Damage to Human Health. Increase water consumption was the impact that was associated most closely with the changes in water usage in the production phase. The methodological variations that had notable impacts on the outcomes of the LCA models included the application of cut off points at the production gate, modification of the functional unit to meet Product Category Rule criteria, and changes to system boundaries that allowed for allocation of additional impacts associated with fiber recycling.
The study concluded that it is important that the LCA commissioner determine the purpose of an LCA at the onset of a study. This will dictate the methodologies that will be followed and data sets that will be selected for use by the LCA practitioner. Traditional LCA datasets provide sufficient information for LCA models to provide generalized information; however, if the LCA commissioner wishes to have actionable outcome information, site specific unit flow level inputs are needed
Countering Anthropocentrism: The Animal Plaint in Late Medieval Iberia
No full textThis dissertation delves into the historical and literary exploration of animal fictions as a medium for social critique and political contention, particularly focusing on the tradition of animal complaint against humans in Iberian literature of the Late Middle Ages. It further explores the symbolic use of animals in literature, where animals are not merely stand-ins for human characters but are employed to critique human exceptionalism and the anthropocentric world order. This literary tradition, extending from ancient to modern times across various cultures and epochs, utilizes animal characters to question and challenge the established norms of power, sovereignty, and human dominion over other species. The dissertation argues that these narratives serve as a platform for reimagining community structures and the hierarchy of beings, thereby contesting the political distribution of voice and agency.
Central to this dissertation is the examination of specific texts from the Iberian tradition during the Late Middle Ages, where animals, endowed with speech, lament their treatment by humans and condemn their arrogance. This motif, largely unexplored in scholarly literature from the perspective of Critical Animal Studies, is scrutinized for its literary, ethical, and political implications. The analysis spans a wide array of literary works and genres, highlighting the recurring themes of animal grievance and the critique of human actions and ethics.
The dissertation posits that these animal plaints not only reflect a non-anthropocentric critique but also contribute to the intertextual richness of animal literature, connecting disparate works and traditions through common themes and motifs. It also suggests that the literary device of animal plaints has significant implications for the development of modern moral and philosophical theories that challenge human-centered worldviews and advocate for a more empathetical relationship with nonhuman animals. In conclusion, this dissertation explores the potential of literary zoophony to foster empathy towards animal suffering, while also considering the limitations and possible distortions in understanding the needs of other species through humanized animal representations