Storytelling in Contemporary Ballet

The goal of my thesis is to challenge the conventions of classical ballet and fully grasp storytelling within contemporary ballet in a way that appeals to modern audiences. I used postpositivist research, historiography, and dance ethnography as modes of research to uncover common themes and trends of traditional ballet, which led to a deeper understanding of contemporary ballet and the modes choreographers and educators use to challenge classical ballet stereotypes. My methodology was to identify common themes from folklore, classical ballet, and traditional storytelling. I have studied traditional folklore and fairytales and have evaluated and reviewed the thematic content of the same themes within classical ballet. I also conducted an analysis of works by contemporary choreographers who are deconstructing, retelling, and reworking traditional tales in new ways. This research has allowed me to evaluate traditional values and thematic content found in these stories on a deeper level and to understand American cultural and social evolution

Determination of the Activities of Indium and Mercury and the Vapor Pressures of Mercury over these Amalgams from 0.00216 to 0.02494 Mole Fraction Indium at 25 C and from 0.00067 to 0.02410 Mole Fraction Indium at 70 C by Electromotive Force Measurements

This work was performed to determine by experimental means the activities of both indium and mercury and the vapor pressures of mercury over these amalgams at 25 and 70 C

The Philippines under American control 1898-1927

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston Universit

Seed Priming: New Comprehensive Approaches for an Old Empirical Technique

Seed priming is a pre-sowing treatment which leads to a physiological state that enables seed to germinate more efficiently. The majority of seed treatments are based on seed imbibition allowing the seeds to go through the first reversible stage of germination but do not allow radical protrusion through the seed coat. Seeds keeping their desiccation tolerance are then dehydrated and can be stored until final sowing. During subsequent germination, primed seeds exhibit a faster and more synchronized germination and young seedlings are often more vigorous and resistant to abiotic stresses than seedlings obtained from unprimed seeds. Priming often involves soaking seed in predetermined amounts of water or limitation of the imbibition time. The imbibition rate could be somehow controlled by osmotic agents such as PEG and referred as osmopriming. Halopriming implies the use of specific salts while "hormopriming" relies on the use of plant growth regulators. Some physical treatments (UV, cold or heat,..) also provide germination improvement thus suggesting that priming effects are not necessarily related to seed imbibition. A better understanding of the metabolic events taking place during the priming treatment and the subsequent germination should help to use this simple and cheap technology in a more efficient way

COX, Harvey, Turning East : The Promise and Peril of the New Orientalism

Excessive soil salinity is a major ecological and agronomical problem, the adverse effects of which are becoming a serious issue in regions where saline water is used for irrigation. Plants can employ regulatory strategies, such as DNA methylation, to enable relatively rapid adaptation to new conditions. In this regard, cytosine methylation might play an integral role in the regulation of gene expression at both the transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels. Rapeseed, which is the most important oilseed crop in Europe, is classified as being tolerant of salinity, although cultivars can vary substantially in their levels of tolerance. In this study, the Methylation Sensitive Amplified Polymorphism (MSAP) approach was used to assess the extent of cytosine methylation under salinity stress in salinity-tolerant (Exagone) and salinity-sensitive (Toccata) rapeseed cultivars. Our data show that salinity affected the level of DNA methylation. In particular methylation decreased in Exagone and increased in Toccata. Nineteen DNA fragments showing polymorphisms related to differences in methylation were sequenced. In particular, two of these were highly similar to genes involved in stress responses (Lacerata and trehalose-6-phosphatase synthase S4) and were chosen to further characterization. Bisulfite sequencing and quantitative RT-PCR analysis of selected MSAP loci showed that cytosine methylation changes under salinity as well as gene expression varied. In particular, our data show that salinity stress influences the expression of the two stress-related genes. Moreover, we quantified the level of trehalose in Exagone shoots and found that it was correlated to TPS4 expression and, therefore, to DNA methylation. In conclusion, we found that salinity could induce genome-wide changes in DNA methylation status, and that these changes, when averaged across different genotypes and developmental stages, accounted for 16.8% of the total site-specific methylation differences in the rapeseed genome, as detected by MSAP analysis

Estimates of n-widths of Sobolev's classes on compact globally symmetric spaces of rank one

AbstractEstimates of Kolmogorov's and linear n-widths of Sobolev's classes on compact globally symmetric spaces of rank 1 (i.e. on Sd, Pd(R), Pd(C), Pd(H), P16(Cay)) are established. It is shown that these estimates have sharp orders in different important cases. New estimates for the (p,q)-norms of multiplier operators Λ={λk}k∈N are given. We apply our results to get sharp orders of best polynomial approximation and n-widths

Root-targeted biotechnology to mediate hormonal signaling and improve crop stress tolerance

peer reviewe