Digital Commons Network^™

An Eigenanalysis And Synthesis Of Unitary Operators Used In Quantum Computing Algorithms, Steven Randall Hutsell

Dissertations and Theses

In this work we tackle the challenge of designing quantum unitary operators which represent solutions to optimization problems. We start with a novel method which combines an evolutionary algorithm known as an Evolution Strategy (ES) with a method to randomly generate unitary operators. With this new method, a quantum operator is represented for the first time using real-valued vectors and can be "evolved" or designed to meet certain target criteria. This criteria could be the solution to an optimization problem. With the ability to evolve quantum operators, we attempt to evolve various known single and multi-qubit quantum gates as well …

Factors Associated With Inclusion Of Spirituality In Secular Social Work Education, Leslie Grace Wuest

Dissertations and Theses

In a diverse society, social work practitioners must be able to work with and respect people from a wide variety of cultures and ethnicities and with different value systems and ideological perspectives, including spiritual or religious beliefs. Accordingly, social work education has begun to incorporate the topic of spirituality. This study builds upon previous studies by Dudley and Helfgott (1990) and Sheridan et al. (1994) which focused on views of faculty members regarding spirituality in social work education and support for a course on spirituality in the social work curriculum. This study goes on to examine inclusion of spirituality in …

Dynamic Task Prediction For An Spmt Architecture Based On Control Independence, Komal Jothi

Dissertations and Theses

Exploiting better performance from computer programs translates to finding more instructions to execute in parallel. Since most general purpose programs are written in an imperatively sequential manner, closely lying instructions are always data dependent, making the designer look far ahead into the program for parallelism. This necessitates wider superscalar processors with larger instruction windows. But superscalars suffer from three key limitations, their inability to scale, sequential fetch bottleneck and high branch misprediction penalty. Recent studies indicate that current superscalars have reached the end of the road and designers will have to look for newer ideas to build computer processors.

Speculative …

Cognition And Star Trek: Learning And Legal Education, Kate Bloch

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Teaching Level-1 Braille Reading Skills Within A Stimulus Equivalence Paradigm To Children With Progressive Visual Impairments, Karen Ann Toussaint

LSU Master's Theses

Degenerative visual impairments refer to conditions that result in the progressive loss of vision; several of these conditions have their onset during childhood. Nearly 3% of the school-aged population will experience vision loss that will require specialized support, yet there has been little attempt to systematically evaluate braille-instruction programs. The current study evaluated an instructive procedure for teaching early braille-reading skills with four school-aged children with degenerative visual impairments. Following a series of pretests, braille instruction involved providing a sample braille letter and teaching the selection of the corresponding printed text letter from a comparison array. Concomitant with increases in …

All My Pretty Ones By Stephen Paulus; A Song Cycle For Soprano And Piano On A Text By Michael Dennis Browne, Emily Grundstad Hall

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Stephen Paulus (b. 1949) is emerging as one of America’s accomplished composers for the voice. He is skilled in writing sensitively for the demands of the solo voice and is becoming known as an important contributor to the genre with approximately 50 art songs, 12 song cycles as well as 10 operas and 250 choral pieces. This paper will discuss the song cycle, All My Pretty Ones, for soprano and piano, which was published in 1984 with a text by Michael Dennis Browne. The cycle was Paulus and Browne’s first collaboration and since its conception the two have continued to …

A Constitution Without Constitutionalism: Reflections On Iraq's Failed Constitutional Process, Feisal Amin Istrabadi

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

100 Years Strong: Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services And The On-Going Pursuit For Equal Rights And Equal Justice, Tom I. Romero Ii, Bruce A. Beneke

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Environmental Politics In Paradise: Resistance To The Selling Of Vieques, Sherrie Baver

Publications and Research

The most notable instance of a massive and successful social protest in Puerto Rico in recent years has been on the island of Vieques between 1999 and 2003. This was a rare case in which Puerto Ricans were able to overcome their partisan divisions to end the U.S. Navy's 60 years of training on this small, 51- square-mile island off the main island's east coast. Part of the reason for the Vieques victory, including gaining support from some influential U.S. politicians, was that leaders framed the protest in terms of human rights, public health and environmental degradation rather than Yanqui …

Cookie Monsters: Seeing Young People’S Hacking As Creative Practice, Gregory T. Donovan, Cindi Katz

Publications and Research

This paper examines the benefits and obstacles to young people’s open-ended and unrestricted access to technological environments. While children and youth are frequently seen as threatened or threatening in this realm, their playful engagements suggest that they are self-possessed social actors, able to negotiate most of its challenges effectively. Whether it is proprietary software, the business practices of some technology providers, or the separation of play, work, and learning in most classrooms, the spatial-temporality of young people’s access to and use of technology is often configured to restrict their freedom of choice and behavior. We focus on these issues through …

I Promise I Won't Say 'Herstory': New Conversations Among Feminists, Jannelle Ruswick, Alycia Sellie

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Synergies And Tensions Between Rural Social Movements And Professional Researchers, Marc Edelman

Publications and Research

This essay outlines approaches to analysing and managing relations between rural activists and academic researchers. It suggests (a) that contemporary social movements engage in knowledge production practices much like those of academic and NGO-affiliated researchers and (b) that the boundaries between activists and researchers are not always as sharp as is sometimes claimed. These blurred boundaries and shared practices can create synergies in activist– academic relations. The essay then examines tensions in the relationship, including activists’ expectation that academic research will be immediately applicable to their struggles and researchers’ expectation that movement participants will accommodate their needs. The final section …

1968/1989: Political Upheaval And Artistic Change, Claire Bishop, Marta Dziewanska

Publications and Research

Anthology of texts proceeding from the conference "1968/1989: Political Upheaval and Artistic Change" held at the Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, in 2008.

Ken Russell: Musical Mythmaker, Michael Adams

Publications and Research

Iconoclastic English film director Ken Russell (1927-2011) made more films about music and musical figures than any other filmmaker. His theatrical films and BBC films from 1959 to 2002 are examined.

Quirky, Not Quacky: Quantum Computing For Librarians, Jill Cirasella

Publications and Research

This slideshow introduces librarians and non-scientists to the relatively young field of quantum computing.

Brooklyn College Library's Online Art Catalog: Art On The Wall Goes Digital, Jill Cirasella

Publications and Research

This slideshow describes the creation of the Brooklyn College Library's online art catalog and audio tour.

Methodology Appendix: On The Craft Of Sociology In The Digital Era, Jessie Daniels

Publications and Research

An appendix to the book that explores the methodology of studying the Internet.

Combating Global White Supremacy In The Digital Era, Jessie Daniels

Publications and Research

This chapter explores both the ability of white supremacists to connect globally through Internet technologies, and considers international efforts to combat white supremacy. The United States is not a willing partner in fighting white supremacy online due to certain interpretations of the first amendment. However, absolutist views of free speech contradict the Supreme Court of the US which has ruled that there is a burning cross is not protected by the first amendment. Failing to take action against white supremacy online, the US functions as a global haven for hate speech.

Wikipedia, Me, And Ohp, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Weaving Color Lines: Race, Ethnicity, And The Work Of Leadership In Social Change Organizations, Sonia Ospina, Celina Su

Publications and Research

For social change organizations working to address intractable social problems throughout the USA, tackling race may not only be unavoidable; it may represent a way to fully engage stakeholders in social change work. We argue that illuminating the relationship between race and leadership can advance our under- standing of how social change leadership happens in practice. We build upon scholarship that emphasizes the ways in which seemingly essentialist, intractable racial categories are actually mutable, and the simultaneous emergence of academic research calling attention to the constructed and collective dimensions of leadership. Using a constructionist lens to analyze narratives from 22 …

Post-Structuralism And Music Theory (A Response To Adam Krims), Joseph N. Straus

Publications and Research

In a recent article in this journal, Adam Krims has argued that mainstream music theory, with its organicist bias, is fundamentally incompatible with post-structuralist thought. This commentary is a defense of theory-based analysis in a postmodern world.

Experience And Consciousness: Enhancing The Notion Of Musical Understanding, Adriana Renero

Publications and Research

Abstract:

Disagreeing with Jerrold Levinson’s claim that being conscious of broad span musical form is not essential to understanding music, I will argue that our awareness of musical architecture is significant to achieve comprehension. I will show that the experiential model is not incompatible with the analytic model. My main goal is to show that these two models can be reconciled through the identification of a broader notion of understanding. After accomplishing this reconciliation by means of my new conception, I will close the paper by discussing some reasons to accept an enhancing notion of musical understanding that includes levels …

The Sensory Intention -- Art, Motif, And Motivation: A Comparative Approach, Yves Millet

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Philosophers like Gilles Deleuze claimed a new outlook for aesthetics asking for a rethinking of the traditional separation between the theory of sensibility and the theory of art. From a comparative standpoint, this article examines the concept of 'sensory intention' which in our view might be able to bridge the gap between acting and doing and therefore to link the theory of sensibility and the theory of art.

Traditional Chinese art, and more specifically the script style caoshu[草書],has been chosen as the medium through which to illustrate the theoretical discussion. Analysis of traditional Chinese thought on art allows us to …

“In The Shadow Of A Concrete Forest”: Transportation Politics In Portland, Oregon, And The Revolt Against The Mount Hood Freeway, 1955-1976, Val C. Ballestrem

Dissertations and Theses

In 1955, The Oregon State Highway Department helped usher in the freeway building era in Portland by publishing its plan for 14 modern freeways designed to crisscross the city. A major component of that report was the Mount Hood Freeway, a route designed to pass through southeast Portland, connecting the city to its expanding eastern suburbs. Other freeway routes in the Portland area were given precedence over the Mount Hood Freeway and by 1969, when the route obtained federal interstate status, urban freeways across the nation had become highly controversial. Over the next seven years a struggle ensued pitting those …

Blowing The Whistle On Mandatory Arbitration Unconscionability As A Signaling Device, Charles L. Knapp

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

State Standing After Massachusetts V. Epa, Calvin R. Massey

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Paraprofessionals Who Work With Elementary Grade Students With Significant Disabilities In Inclusive Settings, Regina Moreno

Dissertations and Theses

The use of paraprofessional services is an established and crucial aspect in the pursuit of a free and appropriate public education for students with disabilities. Paraprofessionals are often the primary providers of instruction for students with severe disabilities yet are the least trained instructional personnel in schools. Identified competencies and necessary training content for paraprofessionals who serve students with severe disabilities are nearly absent in the professional literature.

This study extended the current literature regarding paraprofessionals who serve students with disabilities in public schools by focusing specifically on those paraprofessionals who serve students with severe disabilities in inclusive general education …

Othering The Other: The Spectacle Of Katrina For Our Racial Entertainment Pleasure, Mariana Ortega

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

The following essay examines visual representations of hurricane Katrina in popular media in order to show how photography continues to be enlisted in the production of the racial spectacle, the transformation of the plight of people of color into entertainment. The essay also analyzes how such a use of the visual serves to solidify the understanding of people of color by way of a black-white binary that does not do justice to current U.S. demographics. The essay provides a glimpse into the intertwining between the visual and racial thinking.

The Empire Sings Back: Aesthetics, Politics, And Postcolonial Whimsy, Namita Goswami

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

This essay recovers the devalued aesthetic dimension of the Bollywood film/song from its political over-determination as national allegory. The qualities attributed to the film/song, such as effeminacy, irrationality, fantasy, and non-synchronicity, which I term its postcolonial whimsy, and its surplus value as the Bollywood film’s most transnational component, allow for the free play of the imagination. This admits the possibility of another performative public culture and imagined community not premised on exploitation, calculability, and passive spectatorship and consumption. The film/song enables affect without literal linguistic comprehension, especially among those unfamiliar with the indigenous languages and musical traditions. What is derided …

Excited Delirium: Consideration Of Selected Medical And Psychiatric Issues, Edith Samuel, Robert B. Williams, Richard B. Richard B Ferrell

Dartmouth Scholarship

No abstract provided.