Browsing by Subject "Analysis"
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Item Open Access Analysis of Climate Adaptation Strategies for Southeast U.S. Coastal Cities(2008-04-25T01:45:18Z) Reeves, UllaBrittThe realities of climate change are no longer future predictions to address in years to come. Impacts to Southeast coastal communities from rising sea levels, strange weather, and stronger storms caused by a warming planet are occurring today. Trends in scientific measurements clearly indicate that temperatures are rising, sea ice is melting, and storm intensity is increasing. The Southeast coastline is particularly vulnerable to these changes and local communities are the first to feel the impacts and address the needs. Yet many conversations about adaptation to climate change impacts are only occurring at high levels of government concerning international issues. Local decision-makers in the Southeast U.S. need tools to identify strategies that will provide adequate protection to their citizens as well as to manage environmental quality and prepare for any uncertainties. This Master’s project identifies primary and secondary climate change impacts to coastal areas of the Southeast U.S. A preliminary analysis was conducted to identify the societal implications incurred from impacts and the specific sector of society to which those impacts correspond. A resiliency criterion analysis was then created to qualitatively examine climate adaptation response strategies through three core evaluation mechanisms: adequate adaptive capacity, environmental sustainability, and the win-win nature of measures. To test the usefulness of the resiliency criteria, sea level rise response strategies were analyzed. Methods for this project included an extensive literature review of scientific findings as well as in-depth interviews with nine professional experts in the fields of government, academia, and coastal environmental non-profit organizations. The results of the criteria analysis indicate that measures receiving a “very high” ranking thoroughly meet the resiliency goals of maximizing human safety, community protection, environmental sustainability, and flexibility. Measures ranking “low” or “very low” fail the resiliency criteria in two or more categories and likely contribute to environmental degradation. Reviewing adaptation strategies for resiliency is an effective determination of strategic response initiatives. Creating communities resilient to climate change will require local officials to utilize tools such as this to choose optimal adaptation strategies.Item Open Access Analytic Torsion, the Eta Invariant, and Closed Differential Forms on Spaces of Metrics(2016) Andreae, PhillipThe central idea of this dissertation is to interpret certain invariants constructed from Laplace spectral data on a compact Riemannian manifold as regularized integrals of closed differential forms on the space of Riemannian metrics, or more generally on a space of metrics on a vector bundle. We apply this idea to both the Ray-Singer analytic torsion
and the eta invariant, explaining their dependence on the metric used to define them with a Stokes' theorem argument. We also introduce analytic multi-torsion, a generalization of analytic torsion, in the context of certain manifolds with local product structure; we prove that it is metric independent in a suitable sense.
Item Open Access Hispanic Families’ Utilization of Social Benefits: A Regional Analysis(2021-02-16) Pinter, VictoriaThe connection between race and social benefits is so strong that many times the issue of social benefits is seen as a racial versus a social issue. I hypothesize that Hispanic families in new destination locations which are located in the Southern and Midwestern regions of the United States will receive social benefits at a lower rate when compared to Hispanics that live in established immigrant locations which are located in the Northeastern and Western regions of the United States. I conclude, based on a historical analysis, that the lower uptake rate of Hispanics living in Southern and Midwestern regions is due to the particularly racial history of these regions as well as due to the racial and political ideology of those regions. To test my hypothesis, I conducted a logistic regression analysis using data that was collected by the National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE) which is composed of four integrated, nationally representative surveys conducted in 2012. The logistic regression analysis of uptake rake by region reveals that being in the South or Midwest lowers a family’s uptake rate of social benefits. This result is significant because it indicates that the hypothesis proposed in this analysis is correct and can allow for future analysis in how to increase equity among Hispanics living in different regions of the United States.Item Open Access L2 Index Theory and D-Particle Binding in Type I' String Theory(2009) McCarthy, Janice MarieIn this work, we apply $L^2$-index theory to compute the index of a non-Fredholm elliptic operator. The operator arises in Type I' string theory, and the index is found to be non-zero, thus implying existence of bound states.
Item Open Access The Pit and the Pendulum, Dramatic Cantata for Baritone, Chamber Ensemble, Male Choir and Electronics; Formal Plan and Constructive Principles of the Heterophonic Textures in Berio’s Coro.(2021) Amici, MaximilianoThis dissertation consists of two parts: the artistic part is a dramatic cantata for Baritone, Chamber Ensemble, Male Choir and Electronics. The scholarly part is an article which inquires into compositional aspects of Luciano Berio’s choral and symphonic piece Coro.Chapter 1 presents The Pit and the Pendulum, a dramatic cantata, in full score. Using the enhanced sonic environment allowed by the superimposition of vocal and acoustic music with a fantastic landscape created by means of electronic sounds, my composition explores the themes of Poe’s story. The tale, full of powerful metaphoric images, could be seen as a description of the experience of imprisonment. The pendulum descending from the ceiling, beyond being a clear metaphor of the inexorable passing of time, was actually one of the tortures used by the Spanish Inquisition. The blazing walls directly recall instruments of torture used at the time, as well. Nonetheless, the pit, whose black abyss is a symbol of indeterminacy, seems to point us to the annihilation of our conscience, typical of the most brutal torture of every kind and era. Victims of torture normally succumb to delirium though isolation, starvation and the alternation of torture and respite. On the brink of the pit, faced with the blackness of death, the mind of the condemned is, in this case, pushed beyond its limits and, ironically, he becomes able to conceive things that otherwise would be beyond his intellective and emotional faculties. From this terrible experience, in Poe’s tale, the prisoner gains the intuition and the knowledge of a deeper inner reality. In this regard, The Pit and the Pendulum is a tale of salvation and growth, against all odds. Chapter 2 presents the theoretical part of the dissertation, “Formal Plan and Constructive Principles of the Heterophonic Textures in Berio’s Coro.” This analytic essay on the large choral/symphonic work Coro, written in 1976 by Luciano Berio, is based on my study of his manuscripts preserved at the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel. I was able to consult the archive in June 2019. The article explores Berio’s motives in his placement of the choir in relation to the orchestra onstage, its premises and its consequences from a compositional point of view. It also investigates the relation between Berio’s music and the work of the ethnomusicologist Simha Arom on central African music, which inspired the composition. Thanks to some sketches left by the composer, I have been able to reconstruct the motivation behind some of the most significant compositional choices of the piece as well as several compositional procedures used by the composer to present and develop his musical discourse. In Chapter 3 the aesthetic and scholarly conclusions of this dissertation are summarized.