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This portfolio and accompanying commentary document my compositional research through the length of my course, 2007-2013. The portfolio is made up of five compositions taken from my total output of sixteen pieces. The portfolio pieces demonstrate writing for a wide range of forces and lengths: Mortality, a song cycle for tenor and piano Five Organ Miniatures Up the Spiral Staircase, for string quartet Sanctuary, a chamber opera Tenchikaibyaku, for symphony orchestra with expanded percussion The five chosen pieces that contribute to this portfolio are representative of my writing at the time of the course. They chart my trajectory towards a greater understanding of compositional technique,and a more true representation of my compositional self, through the research and exploration of various compositional challenges. These challenges include: Tackling musical characterisation, and how to allow an extramusical narrative to effect various aspects of music, including melody, harmony, and structure. The extramusical sources adopted in the portfolio are broad, ranging from an opera libretto to a faintly recalled recurring nightmare I had as a child. Prescribing myself a more rigorous approach to melodic development, which allows me to get more compositional'value' out of a raw melodic idea, and permits me to expend less original creative ideas in a single composition. A more rigorous approach to harmony, and permitting various processes/influences, including extra musical narrative, to inform harmonic decisions. Naturally, these challenges overlap and intertwine in both my writing and in the commentary, as one can easily influence the others. This commentary serves as a guide to my various approaches to these and other challenges, with reference to important and influential works and events that have shaped my writing and development as a composer.

Effective bullying prevention programs are essential for schools, particularly with respect to students with disabilities (SWD). Improving the preparedness of counselors, special education teachers and principals can advance efforts to recognize and to address the bullying of students with disabilities. Unfortunately, schools' disciplinary processes and procedures are often complex and diffuse, and school stakeholders often know little about preventative methods for bullying and supportive measures for the victims. The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of counselors, special education teachers and principals in middle schools on their preparedness to be effective anti-bullying policy actors. This research is based upon Albert Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), which argues that individual thoughts, motivation and actions are rooted in whether they believe they can or cannot perform a task. This qualitative, phenomenological study examined the perceptions of three counselors, three special education teachers and three principals, one each from three middle schools, on their school's anti-bullying programs. Data were generated from interviews, document review, and a survey of the participants. The findings addressed the teachers' perceptions of their lack of knowledge and strategies working with bullying in general and bullying students with disabilities. Further, the participants felt that they were effective in preventing bullying and intervening in bullying situations. Insights from this study will benefit school leaders in implementing anti-bullying programs. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The recent intellectual movement away from universalism towards particularism can be witnessed in most divisions of social philosophical thought. Such a paradigmatic shift has radically transformed a number of theories including feminist ethics. In contrast, however, philosophical analyses of fairness in sport have retained allegiance to universalist accounts in that conceptions of fair play remain enshrined in formalist accounts of the nature of rules and laws that govern sporting games. In this thesis, it is argued that universalist accounts of fair play in sport are incomplete in so far as they fail to consider that what constitutes fairness in sport is more than just the interpretation of formal rule structures. The richer analysis of fair play in sport offered here highlights the importance of individual experiences and the structures that shape those experiences. The ethical investigation is compatible with certain feminist ethical commitments. In order to evaluate whether a given sporting ethos is ethical, the thesis is committed methodologically to a mixed model approach. The aim is to find out the beliefs, values and ideologies of the people involved. Hence, a context-respectful methodology collecting and utilising thick descriptions is employed. It is argued that an ethical ethos has no room for intentional rule violation. For a given ethos to be ethical its game must be practised in a certain way with a certain attitude. The evaluation in this thesis concludes that the ethos of English elite women's cricket is unethical. It is hoped that a potential outcome of the thesis will be a different understanding of fair play that may shape new forms of ethical enquiry and challenge existing methodologies. Argument: (1) In sport philosophical literature fair play has been characteristically understood in one way: the formalist account of the nature of rules and laws. (2) While it is true that one can not talk about fair play without reference to the rules and laws of an activity, this account is incomplete since it fails to consider ethos. (3) Part of what an ethos means derives from the beliefs, values and ideologies of players themselves who have constructed agreements as to how the game ought to be enacted. (4) To understand fair play in elite women's cricket, therefore, one must understand the rules and laws but also, crucially, its ethos.

The present study investigates how parental influence, career maturity, and self efficacy affect perceptions of postsecondary outcomes among deaf or hard-of-hearing students. Research suggests that deaf or hard-of-hearing students graduate from high school with the equivalent of a 4th or 5th grade reading level. Subsequently, this population of students will ultimately be affected in areas such as educational & career attainment, employment, and overall quality of life. Fifty-three deaf or hard-of-hearing students (28 females and 25 males) were surveyed to determine if differences exist between these factors when compared to normative data. One sample t-tests were conducted to determine if significant differences existed between this particular population of students and the normative data from each instrument selected respectively. Results were supportive of significant differences between deaf or hard-of-hearing students and the normative data on factors related to career related parental support, career decision-making, and career decision self-efficacy. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Much of innovation research focuses on the innovating individual or the environment in which the innovation takes place. Moreover, empirical work has predominantly been concentrated on apparently innovative sectors such as those engaged in new technologies or in the early growth phase of development. This research is concerned with organisational characteristics which affect innovativeness in a mature industry setting. This research is based on a subsector of the UK textile industry. The first phase of research sought to identify a ranking among firms in the sector in terms of their innovativeness. The second phase focussed on a small sample of these firms and identified which organisational characteristics appeared to be most associated with innovativeness. In the sample of firms investigated it appeared that innovativeness was very closely associated with a group of characteristics related to the firm's business strategy and how well this strategy was known and understood by members of the firm. Another group of characteristics which also appeared to be associated with innovativeness, though less closely, was related to the way the firm was managed and the degree to which individual members of the firm experienced freedom to use their own initiative. The implications of the study are discussed and some lines for future research are suggested.

The original conceptual framework used is embodied in the title and implies mismatch between supply and demand in the case of bread varieties. As the study progressed it became clear that mismatch could exist in other than quantitative terms and a great deal of controversy about British bread was concerned with aspects of a qualitative nature such as taste, freshness and perceived nutritional value. It seemed pre-requisite therefore to categorise the types of controversy which exist about British bread and then to concentrate attention on the most promising category in terms of determining mismatch between supply and demand. Subsequently a body of controversy regarding plantproduced bread (as distinct from bread produced on the premises of small bakers shops) was identified and a collection made of all references by the media to this form of controversy over a ten year period. These references were then synthesised into a testable hypothesis relating to the original conceptual framework of mismatch between supply and demand. In setting out to test the hypothesis that the British public were dissatisfied with plant-produced varieties of bread (that is whether a qualitative mismatch between supply and demand did in fact exist), a national survey of the attitudes towards bread and buying behaviour of 1,000 housewives was conducted. Having surmised the media might be unduly influenced by relatively small but active groups of opinion leaders, additional national surveys were conducted amongst members of consumer groups and teachers or wives of teachers. In analysing results it became clear that significant differences exist between opinion leaders as defined and the average housewife and that the study contributed towards the development of choice behaviour theory. In particular the findings were inconsistent with those of that group of attitude theorists known as the cognitive dissonance school within the field of social psychology.

This thesis examines the growth of the space elevator community in America from 1975 to 2010. It argues that the continued practical failures of the space elevator, a proposed technology for efficiently transporting payloads and people into space without conventional propulsion sources, resulted from a technological paradigm built around the rocket and supported by a traditional engineering culture. After its triumph in landing men on the Moon from 1969 to 1972, the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) sought to advance novel concepts for further space exploration, but it fumbled in pursuing nontraditional notions of escaping the atmosphere such as the space elevator. Employing interviews with space elevator advocates Bradley Edwards and Michael Laine and other primary and secondary sources, this thesis also draws on concepts such as technological paradigms, engineering cultures, and the technological sublime. It concludes by demonstrating how success eluded the marginalized space elevator researchers who found themselves grappling with the vast social and technical system that supported the rocket's hegemony.

ABSTRACTObjective: To assess the prevalence of, and association between, eating psychopathology and vegetarianism within a cohort of collegiate ballet dancers at a Midwestern university. Design: Participants were recruited via email and asked to anonymously complete the EAT26 and EDI-3 SC questionnaire as part of a survey regarding dietary preferences, behaviors and anthropometrics. Participants: Members of a collegiate ballet program (n=39) were contacted via email to complete a survey. A total of 29 dancers completed the survey but 4 were removed due to exclusion criteria, leaving a total sample of 25 participants. Methods: Surveys were completed in REDCAP and the data were compiled and analyzed for significant associations. A Mann-Whitney U test was conducted to identify the association between EAT26 scores and vegetarianism. Population means were calculated and compared to determine if ballet dancers presented as at-risk for eating psychopathology and with greater prevalence of vegetarianism than nationally representative samples. Caseness for eating psychopathology was determined by scoring 20 or higher on the EAT26. The prevalence and frequency of compensatory behaviors were assessed using the EDI-3 SC. Main Outcome Measure: Of the 25 participants who completed the study, all were female, most were in their first (n=9) or second (n=9) year in college., with an average age of 19.2 (SD 1.2). Twenty four percent(n=6) reported they followed some form of a vegetarian diet. The mean of the EAT26 scores for omnivores was 9.8 (SD 10.3) while it was 20.2 (SD 12.4) for vegetarians (p-value for group comparison = 0.079). Within this cohort, 28% (n=7) scored 20 or greater on the EAT26 and 12% (n=3) had a prior eating disorder diagnosis, suggesting this population may be at considerable risk for eating psychopathology. Eating disordered behaviors included SIV (n=2), laxative/diuretic/diet pill use (n=2), binge eating (n=9) and excessive exercise (n=17). Conclusion: Our findings aligned with those of prior studies, showing that female collegiate ballet dancers are at considerable risk for eating psychopathology. The association between vegetarianism and EAT26 scores was not statistically significant, but there was a strong trend, and it is interesting that vegetarianism was more prevalent among these at-risk dancers than nationally representative samples

The simulation of many-body quantum systems is an extensive field of research which has a large number of applications and has motivated numerous experimental, theoretical and computational studies. It hopes to answer fundamental questions about physical phenomena and aid in the development of new and exciting materials. At the frontiers of research, classical simulations grapple with increasingly large and complex systems which quantum simulators hope to alleviate. Even within quantum simulation there is great diversity as to the hardware used to perform calculations and whether simulations are implemented in an analogue or digital manner. In this thesis we explore elements from across the field. We investigate the limits of classical simulation and the quantum resources that are required to outperform it. We include analysis of the behaviour of errors when the simulation is Trotterised which motivates an alternate perspective for the implications of this scheme. The execution of digital quantum simulation will be implemented on quantum hardware. Here, we present results of experiments on superconducting qubits of both the ‘traditonal’ transmon type and a novel superconductor-semiconductor implementation of the transmon called the gatemon. We explore experiments aimed at increasing the connectivity of these qubits by use of a superconducting bus. A new realisation of these qubits is reported which enables them to be fabricated scalably and Bayesian inference is employed to efficiently characterise superconducting qubits.

This thesis explores the intersections of law, popular culture and medium through a cultural legal reading of the transmedial universe of Persona 4, a Japanese video game. Seeking to mimic the journey of how an ideal consumeristic fan of Persona 4 may move about the texts – not abandoning the franchise at the conclusion of the core game, but instead pursuing Persona 4’s many available official spin-offs, sequels and retellings – this thesis illustrates how cultural legal studies can be enriched by analysing a text beyond the initial point of contact. Synthesising methodologies from areas of video game studies, fan studies, psychoanalysis and cultural legal studies, this investigates the many multimodal texts of Persona 4, from video game to manga to stage play. In undertaking this investigation, this thesis tracks both how the change in medium can affect and/or alter a text’s jurisprudential meaning and also demonstrates how a cultural legal reading can be enhanced, subverted or destabilised through this transmedial analysis. Following a strain of cultural legal studies that reads popular culture texts as suggestive jurisprudential reimaginings of law, this thesis identifies Persona 4 as a complex retelling of the relationship of the person to law. This articulation of personhood within Persona 4 is considered on two levels: a metatextual level and a textual level. On a metatextual level, the thesis analogises the entwined relationship of player and digital avatar with the symbolic legal mask of personhood and the embodied individual experience that it covers. The familiar fragmentation between self and player conjures up juristic associations of personhood that mirror different occupiers of the legal persona. On a textual level, Persona 4 questions of a split self are visible through game’s narrative content, distinct realms of gameplay styles, and frequent references to notable psychoanalyst, Carl Jung. Regardless of Persona 4’s attempt to craft a narrative of a singular, monadic self, Persona 4 demonstrates the inability of the creators and players to let go of their fragmented identity even within a fictional setting. The persistent thematic of self and identity throughout the game opens up a space of critique that animates the tensions of the legal subject as a fictional, imaginary identity that law uses to construct and bind subjects to it. Beyond the core game, this thesis also examines how the narrative of legal personhood that courses through each iteration and retelling of the Persona 4 universe is changed by its medium, extended by new additions to the world, or challenged by canonical inconsistencies or redactions. Furthermore, the thematic of the fragmented self that undercuts the Persona 4 universe resonates with fans who tailor this theme to their own narration of circumstance and self through their fan artefacts. Fan creations are examined as fan explorations of the uncertainty of their own identies, using romantic and sexually-oriented artefacts to transgress the limitations of their ‘real’ selves in a fictional way. Humorous fan works, on the other hand, play with the space between avatar and person, constantly seeking a concrete articulation of the self yet never being able to find one. The journey through Persona 4 ultimately evinces a struggle for the consumer to experience themselves as anything but fractitious. The video game acts as a catalyst for people knowingly experiencing themselves as permanently divided – between player and avatar – and carrying this tension forward into other iterations of Persona 4 as well as their own creations within the universe. Unable to achieve the singular, unified self that Persona 4 allegedly promotes, consumers of Persona 4’s universe struggle with the revelation that legal personality is truly discordant with the self despite the illusions of unity they are sold.

Coherent control of light and matter is a major tool in current atomic physics and physical chemistry research. Technological advances in ultrafast laser pulse shaping allow control over the dynamics of molecular systems on sub-picosecond timescales. This thesis demonstrates feedback control over a variety of quantum systems and describes an adaptive genetic algorithm used in the experiments. In the gas phase, we examine control of multi-photon, dissociative ionization in diatomic sodium. The learning algorithm achieves control over the dissociative fraction primarily by adjusting the peak intensity of the laser field. We also investigate control of multi-mode stimulated Raman scattering in liquid phase methanol. Analysis of the results leads to identification of quasi-impulsive Raman coupling as a possible control mechanism. Further experiments, combined with numerical simulations of the interaction, demonstrate that an impulsive coupling of the two modes by the pump pulse can control the Raman gain. We extend the Raman control experiments to ethanol and isopropanol. Finally we apply feedback control techniques in an initial investigation of a liquid-phase chemical reaction. Specifically, we examine the ring-opening conversion of cyclohexadiene into hexatriene. The reaction dynamics occur on an excited state potential energy surface. Through control of the excitation pulse shape, we seek to guide the wavepacket evolution on the excited state to exert control over the reaction branching ratio.

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