Gathu Piachan

The audio recordings taken in Patan, Nepal by Tristram Riley-Smith in the course of doctoral field work among the Newar community of Buddhist artists.Conservation between Riley-Smith and unidentified informant discussing the Newari festival of Gathu Piacha

Prosthetic Hand: Structure

The objective of this project was to design the structure of a prosthetic hand that has articulating fingers and thumb in order to grip various objects. A design was developed that can add to the available options of prosthetics on the market. In order to create a base hand for the project, the hand was modeled off of rough human hand dimensions. Analyses determined the feasible size of components. Once a base size was found the movement system in both grip and return form were developed and refined. With the parts being modeled in Solidworks and 3D printed, iterations of parts were made in order to refine the fit and the sizing to make them printer friendly. The motion of the hand is facilitated by gear boxes designed for the project. Testing was conducted by verifying the function of the hand via a grip test in. The results of the analyses of the hand are that the individual fingers require 1.5 pounds of pull in order to reach full grip orientation. Full grip orientation is considered the point where the fingers reach the limit of their travel. Once the full grip orientation is reached, the hand is in position to grab the test object. The chosen test object was a soda can, which the hand is able to grip with 13 ounces of gripping force in order to properly hold the can

Explaining anthropophagy and social violence in the Mesa Verde region of the American Southwest

This thesis is an examination of a controversial problem in anthropology and archaeology – the motives and cultural context of anthropophagy, or cannibalism. Views that the practice was a reflection of a primitive state of humanity have given way to a more ethnographically-informed appreciation of the practice as culturally situated with a diverse set of potential motives. Claims of anthropophagy in the ancient past influence perceptions of both prehistoric and modern groups. Because of the wealth of information gathered from recent excavations, it is now possible to explore the context of, motives for, and consequences of anthropophagy in the American Southwest. The main goal of this thesis is to attempt to determine the causes of anthropophagy in Southwestern Colorado from 1130-1180 AD by comparing archaeological sites in this area of southwestern Colorado believed to contain several incidents of anthropophagy. Evidence from multiple aspects of ecology and material culture will be examined in an attempt to explain why anthropophagy and social violence as a whole was so prevalent in this region at the time. This will involve determining what type of anthropophagy is present, and which communities are the victims and which the perpetrators of the violence

Planetary transit mapping of spotted stars with Kepler

Stellar surfaces have been directly observed in primarily two limits of resolution. One provides a wealth of intricate observables and overwhelming detail in the case of our own Sun (Galilei 1613), equaled in measure by the difficulty to model such complex behavior. The other extreme provides scarce inferred detail (Gilliland & Dupree 1996) to simply none at all, for nearly every other star in the Universe. Transit mapping is a technique allowing for high–resolution analysis of surface inhomogeneities on active stars (those on the lower main sequence with convective envelopes) by using the system’s planetary components as the surface probe. Observation from the ground is a daunting task. The necessary high precision photometry required to unambiguously identify and constrain stellar surface features is challenging because of atmospheric distortion and periodic coverage gaps due to Earth’s rotation. To achieve the required precision for this technique to work effectively, it is necessary to take data from space, outside of the influence of Earth’s atmosphere and rotation. The primary objective of the NASA Kepler spacecraft is to search for planets via the transit method (Borucki et al. 2010), such that its sensitivity towards the detection of these objects and its capability to collect long stretches of uninterrupted coverage makes Kepler the idea instrument for analysis of time evolving surface features using transit mapping. In this thesis I use data taken by the Kepler spacecraft to model the spatial and temporal starspot coverage for HAT–P–11 (Kepler–3), a bright K4 dwarf in the Kepler field. The precision allowed by Kepler provides an opportunity to model stellar surfaces both in and out–of–transit, a unique ability unmatched by any other instrument or technique. In addition to having an activity map of the stellar surface, this study addresses correlations between stellar properties, starspot size and frequency, spot motion from rotation to rotation, and overall spot coverage

Drum Training

Naresh visits again this morning. More v interesting info learnt. I persuade him to chant one of the drum sequences he’s learnt, which I tape: called Deo Layagu it is to be played outside a shrine (as opposed to the longer “Chore” which is played on processions through the town). I try to quiz him on different sounds and their relation to different beats: “khin” and “kha” refer to striking the drum with a stick as held in the left hand; “Ta” = a slap with the right hand with fingers splayed open (on one point of drum face – Naresh can’t remember whether it’s at the centre or the side); while “NURRA” refers to a finger run (a 4-hit tattoo using index finger first through to little finger last).A chant of a drum sequence called Deo Layagu