Ante-orientalism : French encounters with the Chinese from the mid-17th century to the Opium Wars

Britt, Kara Beth University of California, Santa Barbara 2001 해외박사

"Children selecting books in a library" : extending models of information behavior to a recreational setting

Reuter, Kara Anne UMI Dissertation Services 2007 국내박사

Automatic parsing and recognition of hand-drawn sketches for pen-based computer interfaces

Kara, Levent Burak Carnegie Mellon University 2004 해외박사(DDOD)

Pen-based computer interaction is becoming increasingly ubiquitous as evidenced by the growing interest in Tablet PC's, electronic whiteboards and PDA's. Many of these devices now come equipped with robust hand-writing recognizers. However, a problem that remains largely unsolved is the recognition of graphical input such as schematic sketches and diagrams. When faced with such input, these devices either leave the pen strokes uninterpreted, or offer only limited support for recognition, while placing many unnatural constraints on the way the user draws. These constraints might include limitations to single-stroke objects, or the need for user involvement in separating different visual objects. In this work, we present a new approach for recognizing hand-drawn, diagrammatic sketches. The key advance is an integrated sketch parsing and recognition model designed to enable natural and fluid pen-based computer interaction. With this approach, the stream of pen strokes is first examined to identify certain delimiter patterns called "markers." These then anchor a spatial analysis which groups the remaining strokes into distinct clusters, each representing a single visual object. Finally, a shape recognizer is used to find the best interpretations of the clusters. This approach eliminates many of the unnatural constraints imposed by existing sketch understanding systems. To demonstrate our techniques, we have built SimuSketch, a sketch-based interface for Matlab's Simulink package, and VibroSketch, a sketch-based interface for analyzing vibratory mechanical systems. In both systems, users can construct functional engineering models by simply sketching them on a computer screen. Users can then interactively manipulate their sketches to change model parameters and run simulations. Our user studies have indicated that even novice users can effectively utilize these systems to solve real engineering problems, without having to know much about the underlying recognition techniques.

Multicultural training for counselors: An action research study for promoting critical reflection on cultural assumptions

Kara, Natasha The Pennsylvania State University 2005 해외박사(DDOD)

Research on multicultural education and critical reflection suggests that individuals need to be more aware of their own cultural assumptions prior to learning about other cultures. This is particularly important for counselors who work with clients from multicultural backgrounds. A White European counselor is frequently assigned to work with a client form a different cultural background. Previous research suggests that the cultural assumptions held by the counselors will often affect the counseling session and the interventions recommended. Literature indicates that these cultural assumptions held by the counselor may be very unrealistic and it is important that the counselor be critically reflective on the differences between the cultures and the assumptions made. This qualitative action research study was designed to examine the role of critical reflection on cultural assumptions through the use of small group dialogue, role-plays, journal reflection, and other research tools. There were eight participants, seven of whom were White and one Hispanic origin. There were six training sessions spanning over a period of three months. The objective of the study was to understand the cultural assumptions held by counselors, who were a member of the dominant culture, and observe the change in these assumptions by creating an environment conducive to change. The change process followed a clear set of stages. In the first stage, counselors became aware of their cultural assumptions and they better understood how those assumptions were developed. In the second stage, their awareness and acceptance of the privileges given to the members of the dominant culture improved. Finally, in the last stage, the change in the assumptions occurred and they became more empathetic to other cultures. The study revealed that many of the participants were unaware of the importance of understanding their own culture and the role it plays in the counseling relationship. This study also revealed that group dialogues were effective in improving awareness of cultural assumptions contributed to the process of change in existing cultural assumptions.

Understanding Error in Magnetic Resonance Fingerprinting

Kara, Danielle Case Western Reserve University ProQuest Dissertat 2018 해외박사(DDOD)

The goal of this work was to understand and reduce the error in MRF parameter maps due to normal, thermal noise and correlated, aliasing noise. To achieve this goal, quality factors were introduced, which forecast the ability of MRF sequences to produce precise T1 and T2 parameter maps. Specifically, the variance in acquired parameter maps is inversely proportional to the derived quality factors.Due to their dependences on the MRF signal, quality factors were used to compare effects of MRF sequence design, including the flip angle distribution, TR distribution, number of total time steps (N), and use of preparation pulses on error in the resulting parameter maps, with the ultimate goal of reducing MRF error.In the presence of normal noise alone, rapidly varying flip angle distributions were ideal for minimizing parameter map error. Varying TR distributions were not found to be advantageous over constant TR, but the choice of the mean TR value was shown have a significant effect on parameter map precision, with the ideal choice depending on the underlying relaxation times. Quality factors for normal noise were found to have linear dependence on the total number of excitations for large N. Therefore, the precision of MRF experiments with large N reaches the expected statistical result for independent experiments: proportionality to 1/√N. The tested MRF experiments reached linearity in N after 1000 time steps. Because the efficiency of an MRF experiment is dependent on both σTi and the total sequence time, MRF efficiency is found to peak prior to N = 1000, after which it decreases toward constant.In the presence of dominant aliasing noise, smoothly varying flip angle distributions tend to outperform rapidly varying flip angle distributions. As in the case of normal noise alone, varying and constant TR distributions were comparable, but the choice of the mean value of TR was shown have a significant effect on T1 and T2 map precision. Like the quality factors for normal noise, the quality factors for aliasing noise are linearly dependent on the total number of time steps at large N, yielding σTi proportional to 1/√N and constant efficiency.

The Versions of Modern Poetry

Karas, Andrew Charles Yale University 2013 해외박사(DDOD)

"The Versions of Modern Poetry" argues that the version is one of the central, defining formal features of modern poetry, generally unrecognized but equally as essential and innovative as more widely discussed attributes such as fragmentation, collage, and irony. Like those other features, the version implies much more than a formal development: it points to how the poem and the poet are imagined and created in the modernist period. Poets as diverse and influential as T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, W. B. Yeats, Marianne Moore, W. H. Auden, and Robert Lowell all openly—and sometimes notoriously—altered their already-published poems, but critics typically treat their interventions as little more than local curiosities. I argue instead that these poets' widespread reuse of their past words challenges readers to reconceive the modernist lyric as a serial, networked event, not a lone, discrete object. Multiple versions dilate the space and time of interpretation as meaning migrates from a single location to the interstices of a dispersed, revisionary lattice of closely related texts. The existence of multiple versions therefore requires of critics a capacious reading practice that can discern, via the evolution of those versions, a retrospective narrative of authorial self-fashioning. This project dwells at the intersection of distinct critical methodologies, profiting from textual studies' close attention to variants and rigorous interrogation of the concept of the text, as well as from book history's analysis of the material contexts of publication. Indeed, the burgeoning print culture of the modernist period afforded many of the poets I study the opportunity to publish multiple versions of their poems in quick succession, in both the "little magazines" and in books that ranged from the unauthorized to the comprehensive to the exquisitely collectible. Ultimately, however, the textual and material considerations of my dissertation always return my argument to a broader analysis of authorship: of the way authors' evolving understandings of themselves, their art, and their place in history get written, and rewritten, into their texts. In this way, my dissertation both advances new analyses of familiar poetic careers—from Eliot's spiritual conversion to Lowell's stylistic reinvention, from Pound's quest for a modern long form to Moore's slow rise to celebrity—and also proposes a model of continually-adaptive authorship with implications beyond any single career or even genre.

The relationship between fourth- and sixth-grade students' reading ability and their beliefs about reading

Kara-Soteriou, Ioulia (Julia) The University of Connecticut 2002 해외박사(DDOD)

The purpose of this study was to examine students' beliefs about the nature of reading and how these beliefs might be related to grade level, reading achievement, and reading comprehension. In particular, the study focused on students' beliefs that were consistent with more passive and more active views of reading. The participants, 203 fourth and sixth graders of different reading achievement levels, read two short passages, answered five text recall questions (text recall) for each passage, and wrote two short essays (reader elaborations) about their thoughts and feelings regarding the two passages. The participants also completed a Reading Beliefs Inventory, which included 16 statements about possible beliefs readers have about reading. Two 2 (grade level) x 3 (reading achievement) ANOVAs indicated a significant effect of reading achievement on students' more passive beliefs. Follow-up comparisons showed that low reading achievement students had stronger passive beliefs than high reading achievement students. The ANOVAs did not indicate a significant effect of grade level or reading achievement on students' more active beliefs. Further, a 3 (more passive beliefs) x 3 (more active beliefs) ANCOVA, with reading achievement as the covariate, failed to establish a relationship between students' beliefs and text recall. No relationship between beliefs and reader elaboration was established, either. Implications of the study are discussed with respect to literacy instruction and theoretical perspectives of reading comprehension.

For an architecture of discontinuity: A commentary on the unity of thinking and making in architecture

Kara, Levent University of Florida 2007 해외박사(DDOD)

My study explores a way of looking at the unity of thinking and making in the context of architectural design. Questioning the prevailing conceptions of this unity that take a linguistic model of representation as their model, this study proposes the phenomenal unity of experience as a basis for understanding the act of making architecture as a way of thinking in and of life. What is outlined in a critique of the prevailing views is that the unity of thinking and making in architecture is not an indiscriminative unity of these two moments on a holistic conception of making architecture as an effective tradition of thinking. On the contrary, this study suggests that architectural making should be understood as the unity of two distinct moments of reflection that cannot be reduced onto each other without waiving the agency of the maker in a tradition of making.

On Mass Killings Generally and Consolidative Mass Killings Specifically

Karas, Joseph A ProQuest Dissertations & Theses The University of 2022 해외박사(DDOD)

This dissertation has two main parts. The first attempts to sort the many different kinds of mass killings we have observed. It traces their differences, similarities, and relationships to one another and other forms of political violence. This yields several different broad types of mass killing – coercive, repressive, developmental, expansionary, reconfigurative, and consolidative – each with different kinds of organizations competing for different kinds of political aims with different uses and patterns of mass killing.The second develops a theory of consolidative mass killing. This implies a short-term explanation for why actors competed and why their competition resulted in consolidative mass killings as well as a longer-term theory for where these actors and their conflicts came from. The short-term theory explains conflict through the nationalized, particular economic structure and explains mass killing through the organization structures of the competitors. The longer-term theory explains the evolution of these actors and their conflicts through a co-evolution of the economics, politics, and organizations.In the short-term, I argue insular elite politico-military-economic networks and mass-based political organizations found themselves competing for control of the state and economy. Because of the nature of the economy, all sides had few options for wealth and security beyond controlling the state. Because of the nature of their organizations, neither side could coopt or compel the other without drastic action. When mass-based political organizations’ attempts to overthrow these networks failed, these networks used one of their few available tools – mass killing – to consolidate their power.In the longer-term, I argue these actors and their conflicts evolved from a particular politico-economic context. Specifically, networks within the military ousted existing colonial or colonially sponsored powers. On the economic side, they inherited a relatively poor, largely agricultural economy with a few profitable exports. On the political side, they lacked strong organizational infrastructure or even informal network ties to a socially and regionally divided polity. To solve these challenges, these military networks pursued several political and economic policies simultaneously. Specifically, theysought to create national identities, rituals and practices, and sometimes one-party organizations. if this was unavailable, they sought to coopt existing political organizations in their state-building attempts.seized control of profitable export sectors, sought foreign investment, and pursued land reforms. all of this corresponded to their state-building projects: collecting resources for re-investment or patronage, weakening rivals, and attracting new supporters.On the one hand, these policies achieved many of their aims. Their economies often became larger, more efficient, and developed. These networks increased their own wealth and power as well as their organizational reach. On the other hand, they failed to solve some underlying problems and created some new ones. Economically, these countries remained relatively poor, highly agricultural, and highly dependent on select exports. It also became increasingly linked – as different regions’ investments, profits, and taxes became tied to the nationalized economy and its decision-makers. Further, locally, flows of people and resources remained largely the same which prevented any transformation of local politics and identities.Politically, this created an insular politico-military-economic network with strong organizational ties throughout the territory. However, it also generated resistance to this increasing power. Often, this involved counter-maneuvers by counter-elites – mutinies, separatist movements, coup attempts – none of which succeeded but all of which drove purges and exacerbated the already insular and military nature of these networks. More problematic, however, were mass-based resistance movements which flourished as economic crises increased popular discontent, decreased regimes’ patronage power, and increased their dependency on external patrons.To resist these movements, which increasingly contested local control (sometimes violently) and national viability (through elections, mass demonstrations, infiltration of the state and military), these networks invested in youth groups to mobilize support as well establish or defend local control. Where possible, counter-movements responded in kind. This created the context for the short-term competition which eventually yielded consolidative mass killing.

Uneven-Aged Management of Longleaf Pine Forests Using Selection Silviculture

Kara, Ferhat Auburn University ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 2015 해외박사(DDOD)

Approximately 38 million hectares were dominated by longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) forests in the Southeastern United States prior to European settlement. Frequent disturbances, especially fire, made this species dominant, and also created an uneven-aged, irregular forest structure in the region. However, with the arrival of Europeans, exploitation of longleaf forests began, large areas were cleared, and as a result, about 97% of longleaf forests were lost to agriculture or conversion to other dominant species such as loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.). Although a concern about the restoration of longleaf ecosystems has increased in recent years, practical methods to accomplish this goal are only beginning to be implemented. Beginning in the 1950s, many of the original restoration studies on regeneration of longleaf pine focused on even-aged (EA) silvicultural techniques because these techniques were considered logical and appropriate for use with shade and competition intolerant species such as longleaf pine. Those methods were successful for regenerating stands, but, the unique longleaf ecosystem has not been fully restored by these approaches. Natural uneven-aged (UEA) longleaf pine ecosystems exhibit a rich biodiversity; however, ecological values such as biodiversity, recreation, aesthetics and wildlife are not fully restored by the regular structure created with EA techniques. At the same time, the UEA mosaic of small EA groups that were present in natural longleaf forests suggests that UEA methods should be successful if we can determine the timing and intensity of disturbance. I believe that residual basal area (RBA) may be an important factor in longleaf pine seedling establishment and sapling recruitment into the canopy. Thus, in this study, the effects of varying levels of RBA (9.2, 13.7, and 18.4 m2 ha-1) on longleaf pine germination, survival, establishment and growth under selection silviculture using single-tree selection based on the Proportional-Basal Area (Pro-B) method were observed. There was a statistically significant relationship between the number of germinants and RBA during the germination period and the following three growing seasons. Mortality of germinants was not affected by RBA during the first two growing seasons following germination. In addition, RBA did not affect either mortality or growth of planted seedlings during the first and second growing seasons. However, RBA influenced the impact of a growing season fire on the survival of germinants and planted seedlings at year two. In the third growing season, RBA negatively affected the size of both germinants and planted seedlings. Survival rate and number of seedlings at the end of third growing season suggest that UEA methods may be successful for regeneration and restoration of longleaf pine forests, and an alternative to EA methods in longleaf pine forests. Moreover, the comparison of RBA and stocking suggests that stocking may be a better indicator when allocating growing space in longleaf pine forests. Additional measurements are needed to determine the efficacy of UEA methods in these forests. Current data aims to broaden our understanding of how overstory density affects seedling germination, growth, and mortality within longleaf pine forests of southeastern USA.