William James and historical mysticism

Laws, Richard Wayne University of California, Irvine 2005 해외박사(DDOD)

Though many commentators on William James sharply divide the religious ideas from his ostensibly more secular philosophy and science, this dissertation argues that such disconnect is not evident in his writing. Rather, like the pluralistic universe he imagined, many seemingly disparate interests are interconnected in James's thought to form a paradoxical union of multiplicity. Specifically, faith in mysticism, the dissolution of the individual self into a greater entity, reverberates through his work influencing his psychology, pragmatism, and democratic social theories while simultaneously being shaped by them. An astute social observer, James recognized the intellectual and cultural crises of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and argued that his generation needed a new, specifically American religion to fit neatly with and to inspire democracy, scientific experimentation, and new theories of historical contingency and flux. To paraphrase a famous line from The Varieties of Religious Experience, a re-imagined mystical ideal serves as the root and center of this nationalist belief. Though mysticism has been a much-maligned subject of late, James's faith was neither escapist nor merely therapeutic. Instead, his respect for mysticism was as influential to his worldview as his philosophy or politics. In fact, these fields were so tightly intertwined for him, each stimulating and shaping the others, that they could not be easily unraveled. Thus, mysticism is not necessarily morbid, escapist, or hopelessly childish as many scholars might have it. James demonstrated that mystical ideas can offer creative potential, enriching more empirical and academically acceptable thought while in turn reflecting that thought. Guided by his sensitivity to the interrelation of sacred and secular belief, this dissertation examines the potent influence that concepts of mystical understanding had on William James's overall work. As an intellectual and cultural history, it also explores how James's expression of a new American faith was a product of and statement about his society, lending new perspective to the dynamic and often chaotic years in which he wrote. Finally, by re-imagining such a seminal thinker, this study presents James's powerful articulation of religious and ethical thought that can still engage and interact with modern scientific society.

Novel nuclear magnetic resonance techniques for studying biological molecules

Laws, David Douglas University of California, Berkeley 2000 해외박사(DDOD)

Over the fifty-five year history of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), considerable progress has been made in the development of techniques for studying the structure, function, and dynamics of biological molecules. The majority of this research has involved the development of multi-dimensional NMR experiments for studying molecules in solution, although in recent years a number of groups have begun to explore NMR methods for studying biological systems in the solid-state. Despite this new effort, a need still exists for the development of techniques that improve sensitivity, maximize information, and take advantage of all the NMR interactions available in biological molecules. In this dissertation, a variety of novel NMR techniques for studying biomolecules are discussed. A method for determining backbone (&phis;/ψ) dihedral angles by comparing experimentally determined <super>13</super>C_α chemical-shift anisotropies with theoretical calculations is presented, along with a brief description of the theory behind chemical-shift computation in proteins and peptides. The utility of the Spin-Polarization Induced Nuclear Overhauser Effect (SPINOE) to selectively enhance NMR signals in solution is examined in a variety of systems, as are methods for extracting structural information from cross-relaxation rates that can be measured in SPINOE experiments. Techniques for the production of supercritical and liquid laser-polarized xenon are discussed, as well as the prospects for using optically pumped xenon as a polarizing solvent. In addition, a detailed study of the structure of PrP 89-143 is presented. PrP 89-143 is a 54 residue fragment of the prion proteins which, upon mutation and aggregation, can induce prion diseases in transgenic mice. Whereas the structure of the wild-type PrP 89-143 is a generally unstructured mixture of α-helical and β-sheet conformers in the solid state, the aggregates formed from the PrP 89-143 mutants appear to be mostly β-sheet.

Measurements of near surface ocean currents using HF radar

Laws, Kenneth Evans University of California, Santa Cruz 2001 해외박사(DDOD)

High Frequency (HF) radar is unique both in its ability to probe the ocean currents within the top few meters below the surface and to provide synoptic current maps covering thousands of square kilometers. This work focuses on the evaluation of ocean current measurement techniques, using the multi-frequency coastal radar (MCR), a system that operates on four frequencies (4.8, 6.8, 13.4 and 21.8 MHz) concurrently. Two methods of data processing, traditional beam forming and a direction finding approach, MUltiple SIgnal Characterization (MUSIC), are compared. Simulations and comparisons using real data are used to evaluate the application of MUSIC to the MCR and to design modifications to improve its performance. Uncertainties in the radar measurements as a function of radar operating frequency, sea state parameters and data processing method are estimated. Results show MUSIC to be applicable to the MCR and to outperform beam forming, particularly for the lower frequencies, over most of the real and simulated experiments examined. High resolution ocean wave spectral energy measurements are used to estimate the effect of Stokes drift on MCR measurements. The effect is shown to be small in magnitude relative to the expected errors in the MCR measurements and highly correlated with the wind. Although results show a correlation between the MCR measurements and the expected Stokes drift effect, the correlations could be the result of wind stress-induced currents. Using assumptions as to the form of the vertical current profile, estimates of the near-surface vertical shear are obtained from the MCR data. Analysis of the shear estimates casts doubt on the validity of a near-surface, logarithmic current profile for the open ocean. Further analysis of vertical shear estimates yields an estimate of the ocean current magnitude at the sea surface that is in agreement with the commonly accepted value of about 3% of the wind speed. Results of this work demonstrate a significant advantage to using MUSIC direction finding over conventional beam forming in limited aperture, multi-frequency radar applications and improve the MCR's shear measurement capability.

What is Owed: Debt, Bankruptcy, and American Citizenship

Laws, Serena University of Minnesota 2011 해외박사(DDOD)

This dissertation combines theoretical, historical, and empirical approaches to explore the implications of increasing debt and bankruptcy filings for American citizenship. Being a debtor was historically punished and retains some level of stigma even today, marking debtors---and especially bankrupts---as civic failures. Yet accruing personal debt is also implicitly required to be a good citizen in the United States, where striving for the American dream often requires taking on debt through mortgages, car loans, and consumer credit. In my dissertation I explore this ambivalent relationship between debt and American citizenship through an examination of bankruptcy filing---the primary site where the federal government offers relief to debtors. I employ qualitative and quantitative methods, including analysis of publicly available data and my own original survey of bankruptcy officials, to examine the ways in which bankruptcy filing has come to function as a kind of welfare program, and consider how well it serves this function. I find that bankruptcy is limited in its ability to serve as a social insurance program because it advances a highly individualized and stigmatized solution to financial distress, a pattern strengthened by recent bankruptcy reforms which have made bankruptcy more punitive and harder to access. I conclude that the reliance on personal debt and bankruptcy to cover social risks is damaging to American citizenship because it individualizes and depoliticizes what, in a robust welfare state, could be seen as a broader social project of risk protection.

South African & U.S. black female athletes compared: A critical ethnography focused on image, perceptions, and narratives

Laws, Rachel Gayle Michigan State University 2012 해외박사(DDOD)

An athlete is a human being that participates in some form of organized sports competition as an amateur or professional, at local, national, or international levels. The historical and present experience of the Black female athlete is not the same as her male counterpart. This is a comparative case study that critically examines the past and present state of the Black female athlete in the United States and South Africa, primarily within the 1990s and early 2000s, focusing on image, perceptions, and narratives. Unique and interdisciplinary, this study draws upon oral interviews, archival research, images, and cinematic and literary theory and analysis. Much can be gained from a comparative pairing of Black women's lives at a specific historical moment using a particular method of analysis. Ultimately, this project argues that the ideological beliefs and values of white supremacy---the doctrine that places the White race as superior to all other races, but especially the Black race---in South Africa and the U.S. has shaped the (under)development, image, and daily experiences of their Black female athletes. For both Americans and South Africans, this study should be especially illuminating because it allows each country to view each other's gendered, racial, and class issues through the lens of their own female athletes' experiences, images, and narratives. I aim to present and challenge the acceptance of the current perceptions and imagery surrounding the Black female athlete, and unearth and identify the shared experiences and narratives of these athletes in the U.S. and South Africa; a connection that has not yet been explored through scholarship. The significance of this study lies in its implications for the construction of a new voice, vision, and theoretical framework for a group of women athletes who have largely been ignored, forgotten, and oppressed by two similar, yet distinct nations. Additionally, this study has the power to spark a deeper appreciation and investigation into the power of biographical and autobiographical narratives produced by athletes themselves, as most famous athletes' stories are presented to the public via secondary and tertiary interpretations. It is important to allow Black female athletes the vital space in which to define for themselves the contours of their experiences, aspirations, and opinions. The chapters of this study explore a wide-range of issues, relationships, themes, and theories concerning modes of understanding and analyzing Black female athletes and their role within the sports world and society in general. Significant historical periods and events, Black-White race relations, media and visual modes of cultural production, perceptions, and narratives, are presented and analyzed. The concluding chapter of this study offers insight into the future state of Black female athletes specifically and female athletics generally, in the United States and South Africa.

"The Millennium of Their Glory": Public Memory and War Monuments in North Carolina, 1865-1929

Laws, William Christopher North Carolina State University ProQuest Dissertat 2022 해외박사(DDOD)

“The Millennium of Their Glory” investigates how North Carolinians cultivated memories of the Civil War in order to promote specific public interpretations and ideals. Between 1865 and 1929, state governments, politicians, memorial associations, fraternal organizations, and individual community members created public memories and found purpose for them. This study considers memory-making as a process, rather than a product, and explores the emerging culture war fought over North Carolina’s Civil War memory, which saw wartime anti-Confederate sentiments and vernacular memories obliterated in favor of a consensus, White reconciliation official memory. In addition to a thorough examination of Confederate monumentalism during this era, “The Millennium of Their Glory,” analyzes North Carolina’s history with non-Confederate Civil War commemoration and memory-making. Union monuments placed in the state exemplified a meshing of Confederate and American values into a new White American identity. This process took place completely within the framework of the Lost Cause— a seamless blend of Lost Cause and Cause Victorious doctrines, which shaped the war memory in ways that minimized the causes of the war and eliminated Black Americans’ contributions, voices, and memories. At the turn of the twentieth century, North Carolina Confederate memorialists even managed to assimilate new American heroes, like Worth Bagley, who died for the Stars and Stripes thirty years after the fall of the Stars and Bars, into Confederate lore. In this respect, southerners were not simply defending and protecting old Confederate ideals, but were actively asserting new expectations into American culture, giving birth to new forms of White nationalism that the North endorsed and shared.

Modeling Dyadic Attunement: Physiological Concordance in Newly Married Couples and Alliance Similarity in Patient-Therapist Dyads

Laws, Holly University of Massachusetts Amherst 2014 해외박사(DDOD)

Mutual influence within relationships is theorized as central to human development and functioning across the lifespan. Multiple theories posit a process of progressive bidirectional influence that results in greater similarity between dyad members over time, termed attunement. Yet attunement processes, from dyadic synchrony in healthy child development to partner influence within romantic relationships, are difficult to measure and model. One difficulty is that capturing information from both members of a relationship pair, or dyad, requires statistical modeling that appropriately accounts for the interdependence between them. The present study addressed this issue by putting forward a framework for modeling attunement processes between relationship members over time, and applied this framework to two distinct studies. The studies both tested whether attunement occurred in two large-scale dyadic samples, the first in a sample of newly-married couples, the second in a sample of psychotherapy dyads. Attunement was modeled both as an outcome (in Study 1) and a predictor (in Study 2), providing interested researchers with an analytic framework for using measures of dyadic attunement as either an independent or a dependent variable. Findings from Study 1 showed significant attunement in the stress hormone cortisol over the early years of marriage in newlywed couples. This finding is suggestive of bidirectional spousal influence over a longer term than previously tested, as other studies have only inferred attunement processes by finding covariation in spousal cortisol over a matter of days. This study also disaggregated cortisol fluctuations into discrete parts, allowing for tests of spousal attunement not only in cortisol level, but also in physiological response to a stressor. Findings from Study 2 also found significant attunement processes within patient-therapist dyads. Specifically, patient-therapist alliance attunement over time was predictive of better outcome for patients receiving psychotherapy for chronic depression. A major contribution of these studies was that they modeled theorized relationship processes at the level of the dyad, rather than emphasizing individual outcomes. This dyadic-level modeling of bidirectional influence in turn related to outcomes relevant to psychological health, which may have been obscured or undetectable with other modeling techniques.

Strategic judicial lawmaking: An empirical investigation of ideology and publication on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Appointing federal judges: The President, the Senate, and the prisoner's dilemma. Generic constitutional law

Law, David Stephen Stanford University 2004 해외박사(DDOD)

The first essay tests the hypothesis that federal appeals court judges engage in strategic judicial lawmaking by voting more ideologically in published cases than in unpublished cases. To test this hypothesis, all asylum cases decided by the Ninth Circuit over a ten-year period were coded for analysis, and Markov Chain-Monte Carlo methods were used to estimate the extent to which publication increased the likelihood that each judge in the data set would vote in favor of asylum. A number of Democratic appointees proved significantly more likely to vote in favor of asylum in published cases. The second essay argues that the expansion of the White House's role in judicial appointments since the late 1970s, at the expense of the Senate, has contributed to heightened levels of ideological conflict and gridlock over the appointment of federal appeals court judges, by making a cooperative equilibrium difficult to sustain. Presidents have greater electoral incentive to behave ideologically, and less incentive to cooperate with other players in the appointments process, than do senators, who are disciplined to a greater extent in their dealings with each other by the prospect of retaliation over repeat play. The possibility of divided government exacerbates the difficulty of achieving cooperative equilibrium by making both the benefits of cooperative behavior and the costs of retaliation highly uncertain. The third essay suggests the emergence of a body of generic constitutional law here and in other countries, for a variety of reasons. First, constitutional courts experience a common need to justify judicial review. This concern, and the stock responses that courts have developed, amount to a body of generic constitutional theory. Second, courts employ common problem-solving skills in constitutional cases. The use of these skills constitutes what might be called generic constitutional analysis. Third, courts face overlapping influences, largely not of their own making, that encourage the adoption of similar legal rules. These similarities make up a body of generic constitutional doctrine. In conclusion, the essay discusses why the idea of generic constitutional law should matter to academics, and whether judges can or should resist its development.

Engineering of compound semiconductor nanostructures by metalorganic vapor-phase epitaxy

Law, Daniel Ching Bong University of California, Los Angeles 2003 해외박사(DDOD)

The structure and chemistry of compound semiconductor surfaces during metalorganic vapor-phase epitaxy have been investigated. In particular, surface roughness, interface structure, and heterogeneous reaction kinetics of the group V precursors were studied. Moreover, the structures of the compound semiconductor surfaces have been examined using scanning tunneling microscopy, x-ray photoemission spectroscopy, and reflectance difference spectroscopy. The surface roughness of gallium arsenide (001) films changes with the temperature and growth rate. Height-height correlation analysis of scanning tunneling micrographs reveals that the root-mean height difference on the surface follows a power law dependence on lateral separation, i.e., Γ(L) = kL<super>α</super>, up to a critical distance, L_c, after which it remains constant. For layer-by-layer growth, the roughness exponent, α, equals 0.25 ± 0.05, whereas the critical distance increases from 50 to 150 nm as the substrate temperature increases from 825 to 900 K. The roughness exponent jumps to 0.65 ± 0.1 upon transitioning to three-dimensional island growth. By relating the height-height correlation function to the Einstein diffusivity relationship, the activation energy for gallium surface diffusion was estimated: E_d = 1.35 ± 0.1 eV. Exposing indium phosphide films to 10 mTorr of tertiarybutylarsine below 500°C results in the deposition of a thin indium arsenide layer from 1.5 to 5.0 atomic layers thick (2.3 to 7.5 Å). The surface of this layer remains atomically smooth independent of arsenic exposure time. However, in an overpressure of tertiarybutylarsine at or above 500°C, the arsenic atoms diffuse into the bulk, creating strained InAsP films. These films form three-dimensional island structures to relieve the built-up strain. The activation energy and pre-exponential factor for arsenic diffusion into indium phosphide was found to be: E_d = 1.7 ± 0.2 eV and D_o = 2.3 ± 1.0 × 10<super>−7</super> cm<super>2</super>/s. The kinetics of phosphine adsorption and phosphorus desorption from gallium phosphide and indium phosphide (001) surfaces have been studied using reflectance difference spectroscopy to monitor the phosphorus coverage in real time. The adsorption and desorption processes follow first-order reactions. The rate parameters were determined by fitting the experimental data to a kinetic model. The initial sticking coefficients of phosphine on GaP (2x4), (1x1), and InP (2x4) surfaces were found to be 730.0·exp(−0.6 ± 0.2(eV)/kT), 1.6·exp(−0.4 ± 0.2(eV)/kT) and 0.0055·exp(−0.1 ± 0.2eV/kT), respectively. The desorption of phosphorus from the GaP (2x1) and (1x1) surfaces was first-order in coverage with rate constants of 5.0 × 10<super>15</super>(s<super>−1</super>)·exp(−2.6 ± 0.2(eV)/kT) and 5.0 × 10<super>15</super>(s<super>−1 </super>)·exp(−2.9 ± 0.4(eV)/kT). The results presented in this thesis illustrate how molecular-scale chemical phenomena affect the evolution of compound semiconductor nanostructures during metalorganic vapor-phase epitaxy.

INSTITUTIONALIZED REVIEW PROCESSES OF THE ADEQUACY OF COMMITMENTS IN INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL AGREEMENTS

DEUTZ, ANDREW M FLETCHER SCHOOL OF LAW AND DIPLOMACY (TUFTS UNIVER 1997 국내박사