Fifteenth Century King Arthur: The Significance of Sir Thomas Malory's Rendition of the Life of King Arthur

My project explores how Sir Thomas Malory (d. 1471) used real life events to shape his retelling of the popular tale of King Arthur. Malory wrote in England during a civil war known as ‘The Wars of the Roses’ (1455-1485). This conflict involved members of the royal family fighting to put different people on the throne of England. Malory’s involvement in this dynastic dispute landed him jail, which was where he penned his famous Le Morte Darthur. I began my research by simultaneously reading Le Morte Darthur in its original spelling and secondary scholarship on the Wars of the Roses and Malory himself. During my research, I noticed a pattern of footnotes mentioning how certain parts of Le Morte Darthur are not from a source that Malory claimed to be using. I also noticed how these new parts that Malory was inventing matched something that would have just occurred in contemporary society. I compiled a list of plot details Malory invented that did not match a source and the list is very substantial. As I furthered my research, I realized many of these changes reflected contemporary notions of themes such as counsel and crusading. I have concluded that the changes Malory made in his retelling of King Arthur’s life were made to specifically reflect some of the events that occurred during his lifetime, such as issues with counsel and crusading, and through these changes we can determine how Malory felt the ruling class should behave. Naturally, everyone’s life influences their writing in some way but the amount of times real life shows up in Le Morte Darthur leads me to believe that this is so much more than coincidence. This conclusion leads us to better understand this time in British history and how people interpreted and reacted to political events.No embargoAcademic Major: Medieval and Renaissance Studie

Performance art, liturgy and the performance of belief

PhDThe history of art and religion is intricately linked in Western culture. This thesis focuses on one strand of this relationship and is concerned with the role of performance practices in relation to spirituality in the West. Contemporary performance practice and theory are at the centre of this research. Case studies on the Roman Catholic Liturgy and the performance artist Marina Abramovi! are used to show how traditional analyses of spiritual performance have not accounted for the effects and affects of metaphysics in how we understand belief. I argue that examinations of spiritual performance are needed which do not try to understand such performances in terms of their representative meaning, but rather, seek to account for their performative qualities as practices that both instantiate and manifest belief. Performative theory has been used extensively to analyse language and human action, specifically the performance of gender. Here belief is taken as the subject of performative action and rituals are examined as performance practices which perform belief. Starting with Jacques Derrida, I begin a discussion of metaphysics and representation, tracing the nature of Western understandings of belief from Plato, to Friedrich Nietzsche, to Derrida, and to contemporary theological investigations into the nature of the human soul. This establishes the metaphysical history of the treatment of belief as well as various theoretical attempts to move past this model. The work of J.L. Austin, John R. Searle, Judith Butler and Saba Mahmood is employed to examine belief through speech act theory as a verb and finally through performative theory as an action. The first half of the thesis contextualises Western belief as a culturally specific entity that has not been analysed or understood in relation to its physical and material aspects, as well as developing an analysis of performative action. The second half applies the performative approach to the case studies

Does Place of Residence or Time of Year Affect the Risk of Stroke Hospitalization and Death? A Descriptive Spatial and Temporal Epidemiologic Study

Background: Identifying geographic areas with significantly high risks of stroke is important for informing public health prevention and control efforts. The objective of this study was to investigate geographic and temporal patterns of stroke hospitalization and mortality risks so as to identify areas and seasons with significantly high burden of the disease in Florida. The information obtained will be useful for resource allocation for disease prevention and control. Methods: Stroke hospitalization and mortality data from 1992 to 2012 were obtained from the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration. Age-adjusted stroke hospitalization and mortality risks for time periods 1992–94, 1995–97, 1998–2000, 2001–03, 2004–06, 2007–09 and 2010–12 were computed at the county spatial scale. Global Moran’s I statistics were computed for each of the time periods to test for evidence of global spatial clustering. Local Moran indicators of spatial association (LISA) were also computed to identify local areas with significantly high risks. Results: There were approximately 1.5 million stroke hospitalizations and over 196,000 stroke deaths during the study period. Based on global Moran’s I tests, there was evidence of significant (p\u3c0.05) global spatial clustering of stroke mortality risks but no evidence (p\u3e0.05) of significant global clustering of stroke hospitalization risks. However, LISA showed evidence of local spatial clusters of both hospitalization and mortality risks with significantly high risks being observed in the north while the south had significantly low risks of stroke deaths. There were decreasing temporal trends and seasonal patterns of both hospitalization and mortality risks with peaks in the winter. Conclusions: Although stroke hospitalization and mortality risks have declined in the past two decades, disparities continue to exist across Florida and it is evident from the results of this study that north Florida may, in fact, be part of the stroke belt despite not being in any of the traditional stroke belt states. These findings are useful for guiding public health efforts to reduce/eliminate inequities in stroke outcomes and inform policy decisions. There is need to continually identify populations with significantly high risks of stroke to better guide the targeting of limited resources to the highest risk populations

A Comparative Analysis Of Carbon Emissions From Countries Of Varying Fossil Fuel Dependence

While aggregate global policy exists, there is less understanding about individual countries’ pathways to reduce emissions. This study utilizes data analytics techniques to understand unique emissions trends for and what drives those trends for all types of countries. Drivers of emissions are analyzed using the Kaya Identity and a decomposition analysis using all countries with available data. A cluster analysis is performed on all countries with sufficient data to identify how these Kaya factors (population, wealth, energy intensity, and carbon intensity) could be used to identify similar groups of emitters. The best performing clustering occurs when three clusters are selected; one large cluster of 146 countries, an intermediate cluster of 23 countries mainly driven by growth in wealth (per capita gross domestic product), and four countries mainly driven by decreasing energy intensity (total energy supply per unit of GDP) and growing wealth. While the heavy emitters have followed certain pathways to where their emissions are now, this research shows that other countries also have unique drivers and will follow individual emissions pathways that will be critical to understand for achieving global climate targets

Shock Layer Radiation Measurements for Planetary Probes

Shock layer radiation to a planetary probe's heat shield has been investigated since the 1960's, using ground tests, flight tests, and theoretical modelling. Radiometers and a spectrometer were embedded in the TPS of NASA's earlier Project FIRE II, Apollo 4 and 6, as well as PAET. PAET is particularly relevant to planetary probes since it successfully demonstrated detecting the atmospheric composition using shock-layer radiometry. The NASA Orion program and Mars 2020 include and propose for future use embedded small scale, low-mass radiometers and mini-spectrometers. Recent work used a specific COTS fiber-optic mini-spectrometer, selected for wide wavelength range for testing flexibility. In proof of concept tests, these mini-spectrometers detected the strongest Na and K spectral lines in both Arcjet test and Laser tests, with thermal radiation. Characterization and tests of the radiometer and spectrometer devices components is described

Characterization of CO Thermochemistry in Incident Shockwaves

Incident shock waves in pure CO have been characterized in the Electric Arc ShockTube facility at NASA Ames Research Center. Spectrally and spatially resolved emissionspectra characterize radiative signatures from CO in the VUV and mid-infrared and atomiccarbon and C2 in the visible. CO absorption of a single vibrational line is also measuredwith a tunable diode laser. The experimental data analyzed here are at a pressure of 0.25Torr in the driven section and span a shock velocity range from 3.4-9.5 km/s. The emissionand absorption signals are analyzed to extract temperature relaxation behind the shockwhich is used to derive the rate of CO dissociation. The emission spectra are compared toresults using different kinetic parameters for CO dissociation and C2 dissociation andexchange. Different rates from the literature are found to match the data from 3.4-6.6 km/sand 6.6-9.5 km/s. Areas for improvement in CO and C2 radiation modeling are suggested onthe basis of the analysis

Examining the Quality of Parent Interaction with Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder in Distinctly Different Play Environments

ASD is characterized primarily by deficits in social and communicative skills, however recent studies show differences in motor skills as well when compared to typically developing children. Because of these differences, parents of children with ASD may portray different behaviors than parents of typically developing children. This research aims to find how parents engage with their child (either with or without ASD) in distinctly different play settings; one that promotes social play and one that promotes gross motor function and physical activity). Parents were coded on five behaviors using an adapted parent-child interaction rating scale from EHS: 24-month 3 bag scales. The behaviors coded were: parent encourages a stimulating environment, negativity, sensitivity, detachment, and intrusiveness, which were used while coding interactions in both settings. Results from this project indicated a difference in parental behaviors in a motor setting.  Parents of children with ASD were overall less encouraging of a stimulating environment (p=.04) and less sensitive (p=.01) in the motor setting. These results highlight the importance of educating parents regarding how to interact with children with ASD in a physical activity setting to increase engagement in physical activity for children with developmental disabilities considering the known differences in child behaviors in such a setting

Cell non-autonomous regulation of hepatic IGF-1 and neonatal growth by Kinase Suppressor of Ras 2 (KSR2)

Individuals with poor postnatal growth are at risk for cardiovascular and metabolic problems as adults. Here we show that disruption of the molecular scaffold Kinase Suppressor of Ras 2 (KSR2) causes selective inhibition of hepatic GH signaling in neonatal mice with impaired expression of IGF-1 and IGFBP3. ksr2−/− mice are normal size at birth but show a marked increase in FGF21 accompanied by reduced body mass, shortened body length, and reduced bone mineral density (BMD) and content (BMC) first evident during postnatal development. However, disrupting FGF21 in ksr2−/− mice does not normalize mass, length, or bone density and content in fgf21−/−ksr2−/− mice. Body length, BMC and BMD, but not body mass, are rescued by infection of two-day-old ksr2−/− mice with a recombinant adenovirus encoding human IGF-1. Relative to wild-type mice, GH injections reveal a significant reduction in JAK2 and STAT5 phosphorylation in liver, but not in skeletal muscle, of ksr2−/− mice. However, primary hepatocytes isolated from ksr2−/− mice show no reduction in GH-stimulated STAT5 phosphorylation. These data indicate that KSR2 functions in a cell non-autonomous fashion to regulate GH-stimulated IGF-1 expression in the liver of neonatal mice, which plays a key role in the development of body length