VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Personal names as evidence for Athenian social and political history ca. 507-300 B.C

This thesis derives new historical evidence from the thousands of personal names surviving from Athens of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. Nearly all such names were composed of one or two easily discernible Greek words, or name-elements. Contemporary literature and inscriptions show that Athenians paid attention to the lexical connotations of these elements and believed that they could or ought to describe a family's values or a person's social role. When parents (usually fathers) named their children in the first days of life, they considered these connotations along with the dictates of tradition, which encouraged them to use one or more ancestral elements or an ancestral name. As a result, name-elements reflect Athenian culture. For instance, the frequencies in extant names of the elements 'naus' ('ship'), Asklepios, and Athena vary through time in a manner consistent with what we know of their related institutions. This insight is used to further our understanding of two groups of people of diminished status in the fourth century. First the slaves' names on IG I3 1032, a ship's register probably from the early fourth century, are compared with a sample of male citizens' names. Name-elements reflecting responsibilities and rights unique to the citizen were avoided in the slaves' names; conversely, slaves' name-elements express a set of positive servile character-traits which are rare in citizens' names. Secondly, comparing the use and composition of citizen men's and women's shows that women's name-elements more frequently express pleasing physical and personal characteristics and that women's names were avoided in the conversation of males as a form of politeness, to avoid a claim of improper intimacy which would insult the man responsible for her. In all these cases, the use of names and their composition are more than evidence for Athenian culture: they are also one means by which that culture was recreated in successive generations. Finally, names containing the word 'proxenos' and similar names provide unexplored evidence for the origins and development of the institution of proxeny. They show that the word was originally used unofficially and meant 'he who cares for strangers'.
Comparative biology of salinity discrimination in crocodilians and the possible role of the integument

This study investigated the mechanisms underlying salinity discrimination in crocodilians. The results are as follows: (1) In crocodilians, the capacity for salinity discrimination has a phylogenetic component. All crocodylids tested discriminated between salinities and did not drink hyperosmotic sea water. In alligatorids, however, only individuals collected in an estuarine area were capable of salinity discrimination. (2) The salinity discrimination organ of the estuarine crocodylid, 'Crocodylus porosus', is not located in the mouth. Dehydrated crocodiles discriminate very precisely between salinities and do not drink hyperosmotic sea water when they are immersed in it. However, they drink strongly hyperosmotic sea water when it is dripped directly onto their tongues. Crocodiles must therefore have a salinity discrimination organ on another part of the body. (3) Crocodylids, but not alligatorids have sensory organs on their post-cranial scales. The morphology and ultrastructure of pits on the scales of 'C. porosus' was studied using SEM, TEM, and light microscopy. Their structure is consistent with a sensory function. Physiological study will be required to determine whether their function is mechanosensory or chemosensory.
Quantum interference control of free carrier photo-injection in bulk gallium arsenide

The total absorption rate of optical beams with commensurate frequencies in a semi-conductor is dynamically controlled by the phase of the incident light fields. Phase control of free carrier injection arises from quantum interference between the linear and nonlinear absorption pathways that access the same initial and final states in the continuum bands, as detailed by a Fermi Golden Rule analysis. Carrier density and optical transmission control was demonstrated in bulk GaAs for two different interference schemes: one- vs. two-photon absorption (with beams of wavelengths 0.775 and 1.55 [mu]m) and one- vs. three-photon absorption (with beams of wavelengths 0.675 and 2.03 [mu]m). All experiments were done at room temperature using subpicosecond optical pulses. The schemes are representative of two classes of interference control categorized according to their material symmetry dependence. Interference between A- and B-photon absorption, where A+B is an odd number, can be observed only in a crystal without a centre of inversion. If A+B is even, interference can be observed in both centro- and noncentrosymmetric materials. The establishment of the quantum interference process within the nonlinear susceptibility formalism provides a new interpretation of the origins of certain tensor contributions to the optical response. The phase-dependent contribution to carrier injection arising from interference in the A+B scheme is related to the imaginary part of the nonlinear electric susceptibility, [chi]'A+B' -1. For the first time, [chi]2 and other odd-rank tensors are linked to energy absorption. Experimental results in conjunction with numerical modeling of the nonlinear mixing process provide a novel method of extracting the magnitude of the imaginary relative to real components of [chi] 2 and [chi]3 for GaAs at 1.55 [mu]m and 2.03 [mu]m respectively.
The new reproductive and genetic technologies, stories told in The Globe and Mail, 1978-1997

This thesis analyzes 'The Globe and Mail' newspaper coverage from 1978-1997 regarding the new reproductive and genetic technologies of in-vitro fertilization (IVF), pre-conception agreements, and multiple births due to fertility drugs. Using content analysis, it was determined that the coverage is presented in particular ways. Coverage pertaining to females' experiences is limited while coverage pertaining to males' experiences, particularly those of male doctors and academics is vast. The new reproductive and genetic technologies are promoted through the language used to cover the stories, the orientations of the stories, the sources quoted, and the visuals. The technologies' failures, possible consequences, and impact upon women are rarely covered in any detail. It is shown that feminist coverage within ' The Globe and Mail' allows a wider range of stories to be told and gives voice to the groups of women silenced in the mainstream coverage.
The victors and the vanquished, Christians and Muslims of the Ebro Valley (eleventh to thirteenth centuries)

In the late eleventh century, with the collapse of the Iberian Caliphate, the Ebro watershed came under the control of the Christian principalities which would become the 'Crown of Aragon.' The majority of the vanquished elected to remain under terms of surrender negotiated with the new lords. Over the following century a polyethnic society took shape: one characterised by a remarkable degree of flexibility, given the spirit of the times. Muslims and Christians (and Jews) enjoyed opportunities and suffered impediments as a result of religious identity, but sectarian divisions were not the exclusive criteria of interaction. Hence this study seeks to investigate the effects of the conquest on the society of the 'Upper March' by examining not only the impact of Christian domination on the Muslims' institutions, but also the role of Muslims in the society of the Crown. The first chapter builds a historical context for the Christian conquest. This involves a broad survey of the society, government and culture of the Upper March and of its Christian neighbours in the preceding era, followed by a review of the process of Christian military and demographic expansion, which lasted through the late twelfth century. Next it turns to the 'mature' ' mudéjar' society of the late thirteenth century, when Christian influenced institutions had succeeded Islamic predecessors. Chapter Two adopts a thematic approach, reviewing the impact of the conquest on Muslim administration, economy, and society, and the place of the 'mudéjares' in greater society. Emphasis is placed on the 'structural' interaction, on Muslims and Christians relating as groups. The third chapter takes a narrative approach, and consists of a number of 'case studies' of relatively minor Muslim and Christian personalities, who may be considered 'typical' of the age and whose actions confirm the general contention that religious orientation, important as it was, was not the sole matrix of self-identification and interpersonal action. By adopting three distinct historiographical methods in approaching the dominated Muslim society of the Crown, this dissertation provides a new assessment of the place of 'mudéjares' under Christian power and the nature of religious identity in a medieval polyethnic society.
A developmental approach to understanding the underlying cognitive and language variables associated with reading disabilities

This study examined reading development in low birth weight (LBW) children. Three reading ability groups were derived based on performance stability on the Wide Range Achievement Test - Revised (WRAT-R) Reading subtest (Jastack & Wilkinson, 1984) at ages 7, 8, and 10 years. Normally achieving (NA) (n = 29) readers scored at or greater than the 30th percentile and disabled readers (RD) (n = 16) scored at or below the 25th percentile on the WRAT-R Reading subtest at ages 7, 8, and 10. A third group, Improvers (IMP) (n = 17), showed improvement in WRAT-R Reading scores, meeting criteria for RD at age 7 but NA by age 10. The development of reading skills for the 3 groups was evaluated on experimental (phonological and orthographic processing, working memory, and syntactic awareness) and standardized tasks. Furthermore, the groups were evaluated in terms of perinatal, demographic, and developmental precursors related to reading outcome. The study found that Improvers performed similarly to RD children at age 7 on all experimental reading measures while both groups performed more poorly than the NA. However, by 8 years of age the IMP group scored better than the RD on working memory and phonological processing tasks. On a syntactic awareness task, there were no differences between RD vs. IMP, IMP vs. NA but NA > RD. The RD and IMP groups did not differ on orthographic processing at age 7 and 8 and performed more poorly than the NA. By age 10, there were no differences between the 3 groups. To evaluate possible underlying cognitive and language abilities distinguishing Improvers from RD, perinatal and developmental variables were examined. There were no perinatal differences between the groups except for frequency of asphyxia (IMP > RD or NA). During the preschool years, the RD demonstrated weaker language abilities than both the IMP and NA. By age 4, Improvers and NA scored better on verbal memory and syntactic awareness tasks than RD. Discriminant function analyses did not yield useful levels of sensitivity or specificity. Overall, this study found preliminary evidence for some language-based cognitive abilities that distinguish between children with stable RD and those who improve.
Domestic service for women in London, 1660-1745

This thesis examines the working lives of female servants in early modern London. Domestic service was the dominant form of wage labour for women in the pre-industrial metropolis. While some historians of domestic service have maintained that a term in service was primarily a pre-marital phase of women's lives in this period, it is argued in this thesis that female servants in London could also rely on service as a means of getting income throughout their adult lives despite social strictures against their so doing. Individual servants' stories taken from ecclesiastical and criminal court depositions and parish settlement examinations reveal that despite broad disparity in the work they were hired to do, women in service experienced poverty and its attendant insecurities in common. As a result, domestics sought ongoing work in service despite the prescribed incompatibility of service with marriage and maternity. Women in London service tended to be highly mobile, and because the demand for their labour was market driven, they were able to leave places and take up new ones at their own discretion. At the same time, their mobility generated concern in a patriarchal and paternalistic society. Contemporary writers and legislators stressed that female servants should be better controlled, and manifest these concerns by challenging female servants' virtue and proposing that domestics were enmeshed in London's criminal subculture. Female servants undertook a range of strategies in order to get paid domestic work in an urban society in which that work was always available, but only to women who successfully protected and defended their reputations.
Optimal control of state constrained systems

In solving optimal control problems with state constraints, penalty function technique is used to transform the problems so that the optimal solution can be sought by using iterative dynamic programming. In this thesis, two types of state constraints, which are frequently encountered in chemical engineering processes, namely final state constraints and inequality state constraints are considered. For the problems with final state equality constraints, to overcome the difficulty of finding appropriate set of penalty function factors, we propose a systematic scheme for adjusting the penalty function factors, so that all the constraints are satisfied within a specified tolerance, and that the performance index is minimized. Four typical engineering problems, which are used to test the procedure, show that the proposed method of adjusting the penalty function factors can be used for reasonably complex systems to yield reliable results. To handle inequality state constraints, we propose a method of introducing an auxiliary state variables for each constraint. The derivatives of these state constraint variables are made positive if the constraint is violated, and zero if there is no constraint violation. By incorporating these state variables then as penalty functions in an augmented performance index, we can ensure that the inequality state constraints are satisfied everywhere inside the given time interval. The procedure, as illustrated and tested with three nonlinear optimal control problems, is found to work well even in the presence of a large number of state constraints.
The monstrous world and its shadow, the grotesque aesthetic and the apocalyptic in German Expressionist drama and film

German Expressionist drama and film has inspired a considerable body of critical literature, most of which concentrates on either the role Expressionist art played in the evolution of the European 'avant-garde' or the ability of Expressionist film to embody the anxieties of the historical subject. Although the spiritual basis for much of Expressionist drama has been acknowledged, few critical works concentrate on this crucial aspect of the style in question. Yet a strain of expressionist drama and film clearly shows evidence of an apocalyptic tradition of representation, which can properly be termed grotesque. The grotesque is an aesthetic category that describes the contamination of culturally sacrosanct boundaries. As such, it has psychological, historical and, indeed, metaphysical ramifications. In this respect, it is the natural language of the millenarian sensibility, in its rejection of a rationally comprehensible world. This apocalyptic strain of the grotesque can be found in the works of hitherto underrepresented playwrights, August Stramm, Oskar Kokoschka and Ernst Barlach, and in the fantastic films, The Student of Prague, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu. The formal features of these selected texts that best reveal their membership within a grotesque and apocalyptic tradition include the rupture of linear time and finite, measurable space and the motif of psychic dissolution, the rejection of any psychological definition of personality. These works also show the apocalyptic in their presentation of violence and death as the necessary agents of change, in an understanding of the world as fallen, a place of corruption and decay, and in the presence of mysterious signs that only the elect few can interpret. In conclusion, Monstrous World does not offer a rejection of existing criticism of Expressionist film and drama, but a revision of the traditions in which these works are typically located. By understanding the expressions of this heterodox spirituality, these often confusing works can be acknowledged for the grotesque power they share.
The self which enacts learning, a research with/through the Bay Area Artists for Women's Art (BAAWA)

This thesis reveals and clarifies through creative research practices and forms a movement towards, and a recognition of, embodied arts learning through and as a result of an association with the Bay Area Artists for Women's Art (BAAWA), a particular feminist art educational community. Interpretive inquiry on a present learning process both locates and frames this research. The components which inform this interpretation include: a study of the associated literature on feminist art communities, a participant research study with the BAAWA community presented as a notated theatrical performance script, and an exhibition. They relate to and through each other in a complementary relationship and record the various values, perspectives and orientations I have taken on at different occasions in my learning. It is the relationship and specificity of these occasions or events which point to naming my learning process as curriculum as I have understood it from, and applied it beyond, BAAWA. This research is multi-layered, multi-textured, dialogic, open and aesthetic and points to the particular complexities, needs, and practices of contemporary North American women artists in reaching to name, affirm and expand their practices as artists.
The relationship between achievement and learning preference in French as a second language classes at the university level, a comparison between a collaborative learning and a teacher-controlled approach

This case study was conducted in two French as a second language (FSL) classes (n = 54) at a small, bilingual liberal arts college. The goal, using Action Research, was to study the benefits of Group Investigation (GI), a collaborative learning technique, by comparing students' linguistic achievement, taking into account their learning preference. The research questions were based on the findings that collaborative teaming enhances students' motivation to learn (Slavin, 1990; Sharan & Sharan, 1992), and that students' participation in pair and small-group work following collaborative learning principles facilitates second language acquisition along with subject-matter mastery (McGroarty, 1991; Swain, 1988). The investigator was the instructor in both classes and taught them concurrently using the GI technique with one group and the teacher-controlled approach (TC) with the other. GI involved self directed student groups researching and presenting topics. The underlying teaching strategy of the courses was communicative and used a content-based instructional approach in the sense that it used content (the country of Morocco) to develop French language proficiency. Qualitative and quantitative data were gathered through several instruments measuring students' linguistic achievement, their learning preferences, and their responses to teaching approaches used. The Learning Preference Scale developed by Owens and Straton (1980) was used. The students' linguistic achievement was analyzed by oral and written testing of their use of French interrogatives both at the beginning and at the end of the course. The students' and the instructor's reflections were analyzed through journals, interviews and course evaluations. Based on comparing the scores obtained at the beginning of the course with those of the end of the course, both groups showed a significant gain in their use of oral yes-no questions, and yes-no and wh-questions combined. The TC group showed also a significant gain in their use of written yes-no questions. Overall, neither group improved more than the other, linguistically. According to the instructor's observations, the collaborative learning approach was effective in FSL classes at the university level, and the GI group gained skills that the TC group did not, specifically with respect to working together. The students' views revealed their strong motivation relative to the content of the course, yet, they generally did not recognize their linguistic improvement. Based on the findings, it was recommended that university FSL courses should integrate both the collaborative learning and the teacher-controlled approaches to benefit all students.
The stone monuments and antiquities of the Jebel Marra region, Darfur, Sudan, c. 1000-1750 AD

One of the world's richest collections of untouched archaeological sites is found in the region of Darfur. Prior to its incorporation into the modern state of Sudan in 1916, Darfur was one of the old Sudanic sultanates that stretched in an east-west line across pre-colonial Africa, forming a bridge between Muslim north Africa and the largely animist regions of sub-Saharan Africa. Population movements and cultural influences were absorbed from both north and south, forming a vibrant and constantly evolving civilization. In the absence of scientific archaeological work, the history of Darfur is presently derived from a mass of often contradictory and frequently fanciful accounts provided by the mediaeval Arab geographers, early travelers, and the officials of the Anglo-Egyptian condominium government of Sudan (1898-1955). Added to this material is a wealth of oral tradition preserved by the many indigenous and more recently arrived cultural groups who call this province home. The value of oral tradition as historical evidence and its usefulness as a tool of archaeology is critically examined and discussed in detail. A number of groups have succeeded in forming ruling dynasties in Darfur, including the legendary founders of the state, the Tora, and their successors, the Daju (12th cent.-14th cent. AD), the Tunjur (15th-16th centuries), and the Kayra Fur (early 17th century-1916). These dynasties are examined through a combination of linguistic evidence, physical evidence, and a review of the available written accounts and oral traditions. The work also deals with the regional context, and evaluates the evidence cited in support of existing theories suggesting Meroitic and/or Christian Nubian penetration of Darfur. The parameters of this study are provided by a concentration on the Jebel Marra mountain range as the traditional heartland of the oldest cultures in Darfur, and the site of the most extensive collections of monuments and antiquities. Beginning in the eleventh century AD, a period possibly belonging to the shadowy Tora, the study covers the period up to the ascension of the Kayra Fur sultan Muhammad Tayrab (c.1750), after which the Fur began to build their monuments almost exclusively in brick and entered into the larger historical record.