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2006

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Transparent Coating Materials Based On Inorganic/Organic Composites, K Srikulkit, N Rojtinnakorn, R Charoensak Dec 2006

Transparent Coating Materials Based On Inorganic/Organic Composites, K Srikulkit, N Rojtinnakorn, R Charoensak

Journal of Metals, Materials and Minerals

A siloxyl group functionalized copolymer of low molecular weight was synthesized, aiming at preparing transparent inorganic/organic coating composites. Two types of coating systems were investigated: two-component system (based on functionalized copolymer-HMMM) a three-component system (based on functionalized copolymer-HMMM-TEOS). Their properties were investigated and compared. Coating films obtained from these systems exhibited good optical clarity, which was largely dependent on the content of indicated Materials. For instance, to prevent phase separation in the 3- component system, TEOS was "effectively" linked to pendent siloxyl groups on the organic moiety Hence, coating formulations containing a high degree of pendent siloxyl groups exhibited better …

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Ph Dependant Coating For Microfluidics Devices, L Limsavarn, C Panithipongwut, P Thongkorn, S T. Dubas Dec 2006

Ph Dependant Coating For Microfluidics Devices, L Limsavarn, C Panithipongwut, P Thongkorn, S T. Dubas

Journal of Metals, Materials and Minerals

The layer-by-layer technique was used to coat the channels of PDMS microfluidics devices. The coating was based on the sequential deposition of polydiallyldimethylammonium chloride (PDADMAC) with a copolymer of polystyrene sulfonate and maleic acid (CoPSS-Maleic) into polyelectrolyte multilayer (PEM). The possible deposition of PEM coating on PDMS was confirm by contact angle which showed the clear transformation of the PDMS surface from hydrophobic to hydrophilic. The later deposition of the PEM coating inside the micro-channels was confirmed by change in electroosmotic flow direction (EOF) and intensity as a function of the number of deposited layers. The EOF measurements revealed that …

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Predicting The Impact Of Demand- And Supply-Side Measures On Bus Ridership In Putrajaya, Malaysia, Nor Ghani Md. Nor, Abd Rahim Md. Nor, Ahmad Zainuddin Abdullah Dec 2006

Predicting The Impact Of Demand- And Supply-Side Measures On Bus Ridership In Putrajaya, Malaysia, Nor Ghani Md. Nor, Abd Rahim Md. Nor, Ahmad Zainuddin Abdullah

Journal of Public Transportation

Putrajaya is a unique Malaysian city from a transport policy perspective because of its explicit goal to achieve a 70 percent share of public transport to its core precincts.A study was recently commissioned with the aim of quantifying travelers’ responses to policy measures to ensure effective strategy formulation. This article describes and discusses the methods, results, and policy implications of the study. Econometric estimation results show that improvement in public transport alone is incapable of inducing sufficient modal shift to achieve the goal of a 70:30 split between public and private transport. Although service quality positively influences ridership, modal split …

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Smart Bicycles In An Urban Area: Evaluation Of A Pilot Scheme In London, Robert B. Noland, Muhammad M. Ishaque Dec 2006

Smart Bicycles In An Urban Area: Evaluation Of A Pilot Scheme In London, Robert B. Noland, Muhammad M. Ishaque

Journal of Public Transportation

Automated or smart bicycle systems are seen as a way to enhance mobility and provide a convenient access and egress mode for public transport. This article summarizes an evaluation of a pilot system that was introduced in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in August 2004. Underground and commuter rail stations, as well as a heavily-used bus network, serve this densely populated area of London. A survey of users was conducted and data were collected from actual use of the system. Analysis of these data provided some insights into the capabilities of these types of systems to enhance existing …

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Development, Evaluation, And Selection Of Advanced Transit Signal Priority Concept Directions, Amer Shalaby, Jinwoo Lee, John Greenough, Stanley Hung, Michael D. Bowie Dec 2006

Development, Evaluation, And Selection Of Advanced Transit Signal Priority Concept Directions, Amer Shalaby, Jinwoo Lee, John Greenough, Stanley Hung, Michael D. Bowie

Journal of Public Transportation

This article presents a process to define the framework for an advanced Transit Signal Priority (TSP) algorithm. For this study, traffic and transit agencies from a broad range of municipalities in Ontario, Canada, provided their views and expertise on various TSP-related issues, including practical needs, design implementation, performance measures, and challenges in developing effective TSP control systems. Based on their inputs as well as the objectives of the project, a set of TSP control concept directions was developed that are characterized with different methodologies and technologies. A listing of selection criteria was also established to evaluate the proposed TSP concept …

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Full Issue 9(5) Dec 2006

Full Issue 9(5)

Journal of Public Transportation

No abstract provided.

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Effects Of Temperature Gradients On Transverse Oscillations Of Solar Magnetic Flux Tubes, Shilpa Subramaniam Dec 2006

Effects Of Temperature Gradients On Transverse Oscillations Of Solar Magnetic Flux Tubes, Shilpa Subramaniam

Physics Theses - Archive

Solar magnetic flux tubes support three fundamental modes: longitudinal, transverse and torsional tube waves. Previous studies showed that the propagation of longitudinal and transverse waves along thin and isothermal magnetic flux tubes is affected by the cutoff frequency, which are global quantities that restricts the wave propagation to only those frequencies that are higher than the cutoff. It was also demonstrated that the tubes respond to freely propagating longitudinal and transverse tube waves by oscillating at the corresponding cutoff frequency. No cutoff frequency was found for torsional waves propagating along thin and isothermal magnetic flux tubes. Since the solar atmosphere …

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The Power Of Ostracism: Can Personality Influence Reactions To Social Exclusion?, Amy Marie Waldrip Dec 2006

The Power Of Ostracism: Can Personality Influence Reactions To Social Exclusion?, Amy Marie Waldrip

Psychology Dissertations - Archive

Ostracism, also labeled social exclusion, is seen by researchers and lay persons alike as one of the more socially painful events that is an inevitable part of life. Moreover, many theorists (e.g., Zadro, Williams, and Richardson, 2004) believe that no one is immune to the negative power of ostracism and that this sensitivity to ostracism is both primitive and adaptive. The primary focus of this dissertation was to examine how personality might moderate this sensitivity to social exclusion. In the first phase of the study, college students (N = 145) came to the laboratory in small groups to complete self-descriptions …

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Re-Experiencing Social Versus Physical Pain And Its Influence On Self-Regulatory Reserve, Jennifer M. Knack Dec 2006

Re-Experiencing Social Versus Physical Pain And Its Influence On Self-Regulatory Reserve, Jennifer M. Knack

Psychology Theses - Archive

This study examined the influence of reliving social pain on current reports of pain, self-regulatory ability, and differences in reactions. Participants (N=137) completed personality measures in phase one. Days later, participants completed a mood measure and the Stroop. They were randomly assigned to recall a physical pain, social pain, possession loss, or Monday morning. Participants indicated current degree of pain, level of psychological needs, and current mood. Participants again completed the Stroop. The researcher then offered participants cookies, but noted there was not enough for other participants. Participants recalling social pain reported more pain and greater threatened belongingness and meaningful …

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Police Use Of Force: Does Gender Make A Difference, Lorene Sandifer Dec 2006

Police Use Of Force: Does Gender Make A Difference, Lorene Sandifer

Criminology & Criminal Justice Theses - Archive

This study addresses the perception of the use of force and some differences that exist between males and females within law enforcement. A survey was distributed to five average sized police departments across the United States to survey the perceptions of the men and women in blue. The hypothesis is that women officers use less force to successfully accomplish the same desired outcomes in police/citizen contacts. At the time of this study, there have been no formal surveys on this subject. The survey response rate was 50% and the responses were tabulated to determine officers' perceptions on the use of …

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Away O'Er The Waves: The Transatlantic Life And Literature Of Captain Mayne Reid, Steven Ray Butler Dec 2006

Away O'Er The Waves: The Transatlantic Life And Literature Of Captain Mayne Reid, Steven Ray Butler

History Dissertations - Archive

Although largely forgotten today, adventure novelist Mayne Reid, an Irish-born veteran of the United States' war with Mexico, was a household name on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean during the mid-to-late nineteenth century. A prolific writer, Reid authored more than fifty "romances"; some of which were reportedly based on his own experiences while traveling and working in the southwestern United States during the early 1840s. Approximately half his works were aimed at the juvenile market. This study builds on previous biographies of Reid, both published and unpublished, to form a more complete picture of the author's life than has …

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Probabilistic Localization Of Mobile Ad Hoc Networks, Rui Huang Dec 2006

Probabilistic Localization Of Mobile Ad Hoc Networks, Rui Huang

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

The mobile ad hoc network localization problem deals with estimating the physical location of the nodes that do not have a direct way (e.g., GPS) to determine their own locations. Being an enabling technology that is considered essential to the success of the future implementation of ad hoc networks in the real world, localization is a fundamental problem that needs to be solved with the best possible accuracy and efficiency. For this research, we study the localization problem in its various incarnations such as localization through static beacons, mobile beacons, dynamically deployed beacons and link longevity estimation based on relative …

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Runtime Optimization And Load Shedding In Mavstream: Design And Implementation, Balakumar Kendai Dec 2006

Runtime Optimization And Load Shedding In Mavstream: Design And Implementation, Balakumar Kendai

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

In data stream processing systems Quality of Service (or QoS) is extremely important. The system should try its best to meet the QoS requirements specified by a user. On account of this difference, unlike in a database management system, a query cannot be optimized once and executed. It has been shown that different scheduling strategies are useful in trading tuple latency requirements with memory and throughput requirements. In addition, data stream processing systems may experience significant fluctuations in input rates. In order to meet the QoS requirements of data stream processing, a runtime optimizer equipped with several scheduling and load …

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Neural Network Solution For Fixed-Final Time Optimal Control Of Nonlinear Systems, Tao Cheng Dec 2006

Neural Network Solution For Fixed-Final Time Optimal Control Of Nonlinear Systems, Tao Cheng

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

In this research, practical methods for the design of H2 and H-Infinity optimal state feedback controllers for unconstrained and constrained input systems are proposed. The dynamic programming principle is used along with special quasi-norms to derive the structure of both the saturated and optimal controllers in feedback strategy form. The resulting Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) and Hamilton-Jacobi-Isaacs (HJI) equations are derived respectively. Neural networks are used along with the least-squares method to solve the Hamilton-Jacobi differential equations in the H2 case, and the cost and disturbance in the H-Infinity case. The result is a neural network unconstrained or constrained feedback controller that …

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Compensation Of Photobleached Images For A Cell Dynamics System, Sowmya Gopinath Dec 2006

Compensation Of Photobleached Images For A Cell Dynamics System, Sowmya Gopinath

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

Progress in the field of medicine attributes to the discoveries in biology that require an extensive knowledge of cell dynamics. Intracellular Cell Dynamics Analysis System (ICellDAS) is a web based tool aimed at automating sub cellular particle motion estimation, tracking and mobility analysis. The purpose of this tool is to develop a better understanding of specific biology problems by visualizing biological data. For reliable analysis as well as visualization of cell dynamics, it is essential that the acquired images reflect the exact information of the specimen. The goal of the thesis is to design an interface for the ICellDAS project …

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Analyzing Differences In Color Variation Sensitivity Between Experts And Novices To Find A Differentiating Process In Pigmented Skin Lesion Diagnosis, Yu-Chin Chai Dec 2006

Analyzing Differences In Color Variation Sensitivity Between Experts And Novices To Find A Differentiating Process In Pigmented Skin Lesion Diagnosis, Yu-Chin Chai

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

Fatal skin lesions such as melanomas appear as having high color variation to experts but often as having low variation to novices. This thesis investigated if it is possible to find a function representing an expert's color variation sensitivity to skin lesions without explicitly requiring them to provide a diagnosis. Various pigmented skin images with either normal pigmentation or with diseased lesions were evaluated by experts and novices. To determine the best color space for lesion differentiation, an optimization process based on parametric color dimensions in a RGB color space was used to find the parameters of a color transformation …

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Performance Analysis And Design Of Space-Time Codes, Chen Liao Dec 2006

Performance Analysis And Design Of Space-Time Codes, Chen Liao

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

In this dissertation, performance and design of space-time codes have been studied. The main objective of this dissertation has been to improve the performance of space-time codes. This dissertation covers a wide range of topics in space-time codes. It involves theoretical analysis, design, and implementation for space-time trellis codes, space-time turbo codes, and orthogonal space-time codes. We begin with the study of performance analysis of upper bound of pair-wise error probability (PEP) and exact PEP. The exact PEP is derived using a straightforward method. The exact PEP provides a better understanding of the performance behavior to the other range of …

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Using Part Of Speech Structure Of Text In The Prediction Of Its Readability, Jagadeesh Kondru Dec 2006

Using Part Of Speech Structure Of Text In The Prediction Of Its Readability, Jagadeesh Kondru

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

Readability formulas predict the reading difficulty associated with text. They typically output a U.S. school grade level that indicates the reading ability required of a person in order for him to comprehend that text. Ability to predict text readability is useful because it helps educators select appropriate texts for students and authors write texts accessible to the audience they target. Existing readability formulas are based on countable aspects of the text such as average sentence length and average word length. We propose a new readability formula, the Readability Index, which is based on the part-of-speech structure of sentences in a …

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Scalar Equilibria For N-Person Games, Narakorn Engsuwan Dec 2006

Scalar Equilibria For N-Person Games, Narakorn Engsuwan

Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Dissertations - Archive

In this dissertation we develop a scalarization approach for one-shot, n-person games by defining the notion of Scalar Equilibria. We first show that existing solution concepts can be represented as Scalar Equlibria. For example, Regret, Disappointment, and Joint Equilibrium can be determined by defining Regret, Disappointment, and Joint Scalar Equilibria. These scalar equilibria are useful for finding pure strategies when pure Regret, Disappointment, and Joint Equilibria do not exist. Next, we present the Maximin Scalarization Equilibrium to yield maximin solution concept. In addition, we propose other Scalar Equilibria for various notions of rationality. The Aspiration Scalar Equilibrium is developed for …

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Dynamic Stability Analysis Of Large-Scale Power Systems Using A Fast Investigation Method, Ming-Tse Kuo Dec 2006

Dynamic Stability Analysis Of Large-Scale Power Systems Using A Fast Investigation Method, Ming-Tse Kuo

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Following power market deregulation and the proposed standard market design, the activities of cross boundary power transactions are increased significantly. Traditional company based stability analysis can not satisfy today's operating environment. However, simulating the entire interconnection power system may exceed the capacity of existing commercial stability analysis software. Fortunately, most of the stability problems are started from the local level. One will be able to avoid most of the system wide stability issues by mitigating the problems in the early stage. Based on eigenvector decompositions of the Jacobian, this dissertation proposes a new algorithm for performing the dynamic stability problem …

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Complementing Current Active Queue Management Schemes With Rechoke And Receiver-Window Modification (Rwm), Visvasuresh Govindaswamy Dec 2006

Complementing Current Active Queue Management Schemes With Rechoke And Receiver-Window Modification (Rwm), Visvasuresh Govindaswamy

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) and Active Queue Management (AQM) schemes have been proposed for present-day TCP/IP networks to better manage network congestion. ECN enabled AQMs were shown to have a promising advantage over existing drop-tail queues. However, when implemented, they were susceptible to the following problems: 1) the timeout mechanism or the duration of the reception of three duplicate acknowledgements (ACKs), due to early-dropped packets by these AQMs, delays the response time of TCP (in reducing the offered rate) 2) using ECN with these AQMs has its downsides: i) its messages may get delayed or dropped due to congestion in …

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Ca-Ole- A Collaborative And Adaptive Online Learning Environment, Paola Gomez Dec 2006

Ca-Ole- A Collaborative And Adaptive Online Learning Environment, Paola Gomez

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

Demand for online learning environments has grown in the past few years, and schools have been offering more distance courses to their students. Designing adequate online learning environments is considerably more challenging than conventional Face-To-Face courses; therefore traditional methods can not be used. This thesis proposes the creation of a Collaborative and Adaptive Online Learning Environment (CA-OLE) that provides a structure where instructors can combine their lesson materials with an adaptive system and collaborative tools. CA-OLE innovative approach consists of an adaptive framework that changes the way the learning materials prepared by instructors are presented to the students depending on …

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Personalizing (Re-Ranking) Web Search Results Using Information Present On A Social Network, Sushruth Puttaswamy Dec 2006

Personalizing (Re-Ranking) Web Search Results Using Information Present On A Social Network, Sushruth Puttaswamy

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

We describe a social search engine paradigm which can be built on top of a classic search engine (e.g. Google, Yahoo, etc.) and a social information network (such as FriendSter). In this thesis, the objective was to design algorithms and develop methods to efficiently combine information available in the underlying systems (Search Engine & Social Information Network) to better satisfy the search needs of a user. We are interested on how to efficiently employ social information to re-order a list of URLs retrieved by querying a search engine. The objective was to re-order the list of URLs in a way …

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Adaptive Load Balancing And Change Visualization For Webvigil, Subramanian Chelladurai Hari Hara Dec 2006

Adaptive Load Balancing And Change Visualization For Webvigil, Subramanian Chelladurai Hari Hara

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

There is a need for selective monitoring, the contents of web pages. Periodical visit for understanding changes to a web page is both inefficient and time consuming. WebVigiL is a system developed for automating the change detection and timely notification of HTML/XML pages based on user specified changes of interest. User interest, specified as a sentinel/profile, is automatically monitored by the system using a combination of learning-based and event-driven techniques. The first prototype concentrated on the functionality of the WebVigiL system. This thesis extends the WebVigiL system in a number of ways. The primary focus of this thesis is the …

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Efficient Main Memory Algorithms For Significant Interval And Frequent Episode Discovery, Sagar Hasmukh Savla Dec 2006

Efficient Main Memory Algorithms For Significant Interval And Frequent Episode Discovery, Sagar Hasmukh Savla

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

There is a considerable research on sequential mining of time-series data. Sensor-based applications such as MavHome require prediction of events for automating the environment using time-series data collected over a period of time. In these applications, it is important to predict tight and accurate intervals of interest to effectively automate the application. Also, detection of frequent patterns is needed for the automation of sequence of happenings. Although, there is a considerable body of work on sequential mining of transactional data, most of them deal with time point data and make several iterations over the entire data set for discovering frequently …

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Automated Software Testing Using Covering Arrays, Chinmay P. Jayaswal Dec 2006

Automated Software Testing Using Covering Arrays, Chinmay P. Jayaswal

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

Modern society is increasingly dependent on the quality of software systems. Software testing is a widely used approach to ensure software quality. Since exhaustive testing is impractical due to resource constraints, it is necessary to strike a balance between test efforts and quality assurance. Interaction testing is one approach to marrying these two qualities. It characterizes the system under test by a set of parameters and the respective test values (domain size) for each parameter. Instead of testing all possible combinations of values for all the parameters, interaction testing constructs a covering array as a test set to cover all …

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End-To-End Optimal Algorithms For Traffic Engineering, Failure Detection And Recovery In Connectionless Networks, Sukruth Srikantha Dec 2006

End-To-End Optimal Algorithms For Traffic Engineering, Failure Detection And Recovery In Connectionless Networks, Sukruth Srikantha

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

In this thesis we propose a novel scheme to achieve intra-domain Traffic Engineering (TE), Failure Detection and Recovery (FR) in connectionless networks. This scheme addresses rate adaptation, load balancing and stability issues of the OSPF protocol namely, network convergence times and route flapping. With the current default settings of the OSPF parameters, the network takes several tens of seconds to recover from a failure. The main component in this delay is the time required to detect the failure using the Hello protocol. Route flap is another undesirable phenomenon and needs to be eliminated to achieve greater stability and robustness in …

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Evading Existing Stepping Stone Detection Methods Using Buffering, Madhu Venkateshaiah Dec 2006

Evading Existing Stepping Stone Detection Methods Using Buffering, Madhu Venkateshaiah

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

To gain anonymity and complicate their apprehension, attackers launch attacks not from their own systems but from previously compromised systems called stepping stones. An effective way to detect stepping stones is by comparing of incoming and outgoing connections in a network to find correlations. For the sake of simplicity, earlier approaches ignore that an attacker can add chaff to a traffic stream. But in reality, the attacker may be able to modify applications to use cover traffic. We loosen some assumptions made by earlier researchers and propose a simple buffering technique that could be used by an attacker to evade …

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A Distributed Sensor Data Management Infrastructure Based On 802.15.4/Zigbee Networks, Tianqiang Li Dec 2006

A Distributed Sensor Data Management Infrastructure Based On 802.15.4/Zigbee Networks, Tianqiang Li

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

Wireless sensor networks consist of a certain number of autonomous devices with sensor, every device has certain detection functionality like light, temperature pressure etc. Communication by using the radio frequency make these spatially distributed devices feasible to oversee the activities in a large scale of area/space. 802.15.4/ZigBee networks are slated to run in the unlicensed frequencies. It is a packet-based radio protocol aimed at very low-cost, battery-operated widgets and sensors that can intercommunicate and send low-bandwidth data to each other. This thesis covers the content of a software solution of data management for an 802.15.4 networks. Its main contribution lies …

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Cannibalism In A Cultural Context: Cartographic Imagery And Iconography Of The New World Indigenous Peoples During The Age Of Discovery, Cynthia Ann Chambers Dec 2006

Cannibalism In A Cultural Context: Cartographic Imagery And Iconography Of The New World Indigenous Peoples During The Age Of Discovery, Cynthia Ann Chambers

History Dissertations - Archive

This dissertation seeks to explore the imagery of the indigenous peoples as cannibals on the fifteenth-century cartography of the New World. This imagery represented the Amerindians of the South American interior on maps and in the minds of Europeans who relied on accounts and illustrations to inform them about the New World. The geographic specificity of cannibal imagery on New World cartography reflected the accounts by voyagers who returned from their transatlantic journey. While many of the cartographers never left the European countries of their origin, their work often encompassed both the littoral boundaries and the cultural differences that defined …

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