On Influence

On Influence seeks to explore the varied inspirations that have framed our own learning, research, and teaching experiences. At the core of the exhibit is the question: What led you to your field of study? The exhibit reflects upon the varied influences on both research and teaching. It includes narratives from members of the UT community about their own research trajectories. On Influence also considers the inspirations that have helped define my values and goals as a teacher in order to help my students examine their own perceptions about the Middle Ages. The narratives and objects collected in this exhibit are not offered as research but rather as reflections.UT LibrariesUT Librarie

Optical Properties of Quantum-Dot-Doped Liquid Scintillators

Semiconductor nanoparticles (quantum dots) were studied in the context of liquid scintillator development for upcoming neutrino experiments. The unique optical and chemical properties of quantum dots are particularly promising for the use in neutrinoless double beta decay experiments. Liquid scintillators for large scale neutrino detectors have to meet specific requirements which are reviewed, highlighting the peculiarities of quantum-dot-doping. In this paper, we report results on laboratory-scale measurements of the attenuation length and the fluorescence properties of three commercial quantum dot samples. The results include absorbance and emission stability measurements, improvement in transparency due to filtering of the quantum dot samples, precipitation tests to isolate the quantum dots from solution and energy transfer studies with quantum dots and the fluorophore PPO.Comment: version 2, minor text update

Apartment house Ostrava

Import 23/08/2017Předmětem bakalářské práce „Bytový dům Ostrava“ je vypracování projektové dokumentace pro provádění stavby. Objekt se nachází na ulici Purkyňova poblíž Masarykova náměstí v historickém centru Moravské Ostravy. Hlavní myšlenkou bylo nahradit stávající a nevhodnou zástavbu, ucelit tak blok a zkultivovat prostor kolem Katedrály Božského Spasitele. Objekt je navržený tak, aby nezasahoval do přirozených cest a aby výškově ladil s okolními budovami. V prvním podlaží se nachází knihovna, kavárna a zázemí bytů. Ve druhém, třetím a čtvrtém podlaží se nachází celkem 9 bytů. V pátém podlaží je ateliér kresby. Návrh je zaměřen na zvýšení kvality žití a podporu komerčního a kulturního potencionálu dané lokality.The subject of the bachalor thesis „Apartment house Ostrava“ is to create a project documentation for realization of the construction. The object is located in the street Purkyňova near of the historic center of Moravian Ostrava. Main idea was replace existing and improper area, fill the city block and cultivate an area around the Cathedral of the Divine Savior. The object is designed to not encroach to natural ways and that height harmonize with neighboring buildings. On the first floor there is a small library, coffee shop and a base of flats. On the second, third and fourth floors there are nine apartments. On the fifth floor is the drawing studio. The design is focused on improving the quality of life and promoting the commercial and cultural potential of the site.226 - Katedra architekturydobř

Portraiture: exploring the language of the face

Includes bibliographical references.This paper aims to answer the question 'how do portrait painters capture a person's personality through painting the expressive qualities of the face?'. The first half of the paper describes the anthropological research, taken from the disciplines of psychology, anthropology, and other social sciences studying perception, physiognomy, and caricature. The second half of the paper analyzes four portraits painted by well-known portraitists to relate the painting with the sitter's character. The findings lie in the application of the information gathered from the anthropological research to the specific portraits being studied. The resulting analysis is new knowledge; these portraits have never been described in this way. This makes the paper more than a research paper but a paper introducing new perspectives and ideas

“We drive until the last vehicle is stuck”: how resilient is Hamburg’s public transport system to climate change effects?

Climate change consequences are forecasted to severely affect urban life. Already in the past years, extreme events such as heat-waves, cloudbursts, and storm surges have strained cities’ infrastructures and inhabitants. In this thesis, I investigate the impact of extreme weather events on Public Transport (PT) in Hamburg/Germany. As a framework I apply the resilience concept with the four key dimensions Anticipation, Reaction, Monitoring, and Learning. By evaluating policy documents and seven qualitative PT stakeholder interviews, I assess the current system’s resilience as well as chances for and barriers to resilience building. By applying the resilience concept to the PT system in Germany’s second-largest city, I investigate how a sustainability science concept translates to a practical context and how this practical application relates to sustainability goals. Hamburg’s PT system has already been affected by extreme weather, particularly by storm and flooding. So far, the short-term adaptation has been successful, as operators could respond to and learn from adverse incidents. Although they do not explicitly refer to them in their daily practice, most interviewees are familiar with resilience concepts. However, there is no strategic tool of monitoring and evaluating extreme events and forecasting challenges. Overall, the key dimensions Reaction and Learning are satisfied, whereas Anticipation and Monitoring are not. A major chance for adaptation is timely mainstreaming of resilience properties into existing processes; Barriers are financial constraints, and a lack of political awareness. To overcome the barriers, I recommend a cross-sector adaptation strategy for Hamburg’s PT system hosted by HVV as the PT association. Most of the interviewed stakeholders do not expect social inequality as a result of adaptation. However, it cannot be ruled out that resilience building, embedded into a neo-liberal agenda, happens at the cost of marginalized people. Framed in the Brundlandt Sustainable Development taxonomy, the social sustainability dimension needs to be further investigated.Die Auswirkungen des Klimawandels werden das Leben in der Stadt voraussichtlich ernstlich beeinflussen. Bereits in den letzten Jahren haben Extremereignisse wie Hitzewellen, Starkregenfälle und Sturmfluten urbane Infrastrukturen und Einwohnende stark belastet. In dieser Arbeit untersuche ich den Einfluss von Extremwetter-Ereignissen auf den Öffentlichen Personennahverkehr (ÖPNV) in Hamburg. Als Rahmen wende ich das Konzept der Resilienz mit den vier Schlüsselfunktionen Vorhersage, Reaktion, Monitoring und Lernen an. Auf der Grundlage sieben qualitativer Stakeholder-Interviews und sektorspezifischer Publikationen bewerte ich die derzeitige Resilienz des Systems sowie Chancen und Barrieren für Resilience Building. Indem ich das Resilienzkonzept auf den ÖPNV in Deutschlands zweitgrößter Stadt anwende, ergründe ich, wie ein Konzept aus den Nachhaltigkeitswissenschaften in einen praktischen Zusammenhang übertragen werden kann und wie es sich gegenüber Nachhaltigkeitszielen verhält. Hamburgs ÖPNV-System ist bereits von Extremwetter betroffen gewesen, insbesondere von Sturm- und Flutereignissen. Bis jetzt war die kurzfristige Anpassung erfolgreich, nachdem ÖPNV-Betreiber auf negative Ereignisse reagieren und von ihnen lernen konnten. Obwohl sie im operativen Alltag nicht explizit auf die Idee der Resilienz zurückgreifen, arbeiten die meisten Interviewpartner mit Teilelementen. Sie verfügen allerdings nicht über ein strategisches Werkzeug, um Extremwetter-Ereignisse zu überwachen und auszuwerten und Herausforderungen vorherzusagen. Insgesamt werden die Schlüsselfunktionen Reaktion und Lernen umgesetzt, wohingegen Vorhersage und Monitoring nicht erfüllt werden. Eine wesentliche Chance für die Klimawandel-Anpassung ist ein rechtzeitiges ‚Mainstreaming’ von Resilienzfunktionen in existierende und neue Infrastruktur und Prozesse; Barrieren sind mangelnde finanzielle Ressourcen und ein Mangel an Bewusstsein auf Seiten der politischen Entscheider. Um den ÖPNV an Klimawandelfolgen anzupassen, schlage ich eine sektorübergreifende Strategie vor, die vom HVV als Vertreter der Aufgabenträger angeleitet wird. Die Betreiber erwarten keine negative Auswirkung der Klimawandel-Anpassung in Form sozialer Ungleichheit. Es kann allerdings nicht ausgeschlossen werden, dass Resilience Building, eingebettet in eine neoliberale Agenda, auf Kosten einkommensschwacher Menschen geschieht. Ausgedrückt in der Brundlandt-Taxonomie der Nachhaltigen Entwicklung, ist Forschung in der Dimension der Sozialen Nachhaltigkeit angebracht

No Peace in the Valley: A Documentary Film on the 1970 Protests at Mississippi Valley State College and the Largest Mass Arrest of Students in U.S. History

My thesis for the MFA is a documentary film entitled No Peace in the Valley, the story of the protests at Mississippi Valley State in February 1970 and the subsequent mass arrest of almost half the student population of the historically black college in Itta Bena, Mississippi. This paper briefly discusses the approach taken in my documentary, an approach that sought to give voice in the telling of the story of the events of 1970 at the historically black college in the Delta of Mississippi to individuals who were there and played an active role as the event unfolded. The film explores the complex motivations that drove students to demonstrate against their college administration and places the events at Mississippi Valley State in the larger context of student protests in 1970 that culminated in the shootings at Jackson State and Kent State

Let’s Make it Clear: The Integration of Plain Language into Technical Communication Coursework

Plain language is writing that is clear, concise, and audience focused. Plain language concepts help readers find their needed information quickly and allow them to understand it the first time they read it. Because technical communication shares many of the same goals of plain language, it is imperative that early coursework in technical communication and writing incorporate these concepts; however, this is often not the case. The goal of this project is to integrate plain language into the coursework of Technical Rhetoric & Genres, an English course for both technical communication students and outside majors alike. Through intensive research, material creation, and discussion-based class activities, I seek to form the connection between plain language and technical communications and emphasize the importance of utilizing these concepts to write the most accessible and clear work possible. Doing so reveals that students across all disciplines benefit from these lessons and are able to create connections to their coursework within the class, as well as understand the interdisciplinary application of plain language across all genres and contexts as they move into future coursework and professional writing environments

Agitate, Agitate, Agitate : Stories from Mississippi Valley, Parchman, and the Largest Mass Arrest of Students in U.S. History

In the midst of the turbulent and sometimes violent unrest culminating in the fatal shootingsat Kent State University and Jackson State College in 1970, there is another story of black student activism that has been all but erased from public memory. In February 1970, the largest mass arrest of students in U.S. history took place at a relatively obscure small-town college in the Mississippi Delta. That winter, enrollment at Mississippi Valley State College was barely 2000 students, but on February 11, 1970, almost 900 students, nearly half the student population at the historically black college, would be arrested and find themselves riding buses headed for the notorious Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman Farm. Mississippi Valley State had only been founded twenty years earlier as Mississippi Vocational College, but with its change in name the college witnessed a palpable change in the way the students saw themselves. The students’ demands seem tame today—they ranged from improvements to bathroom facilities to allowing women to have cars on campus—, but the demands were symbolic. They reflected a changing sense among the black students at the college of their relationship to both campus authority and the authority of the state apparatus in Mississippi and the nation. Students were no longer willing to accept without question the authority of the institution and the state. The college and state response was swift and decisive. Concerned with the optics of race and state- sanctioned violence, the state and the administration recruited a group of fifty-eight black officers and from across the state to act as an ad hoc police department to perform the arrests and quell the student protests and boycott of classes. This thesis tells the story of the events at Mississippi Valley State in 1970 and explores the complex motivations that drove students to demonstrate against their college administration. It will also explore the underlying problems of race and authority at a historically black college operating within a white-dominated Southern state