Academic literature on the topic 'Graduate thesis films'

In our contribution to a Special Section dedicated to the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome (CSC) (Centre for Experimental Cinematography), we acknowledge the achievements of the school’s graduates in directing from 2004 to 2019. In particular, we provide a detailed list of the thesis films, short feature and animation films, as well as some long feature films, which have been selected for the Cannes and Venice Film Festivals, and have been nominated for and have been awarded national and international prizes such as the David di Donatello, the Silver Ribbon and the Golden Globe.

Since its formal introduction in 1967, the concept of post-occupancy evaluation (POE) has been the focus of several substantial books as well as being addressed in key professional journals. In addition, specific POE endeavors related to private and government projects have issued reports of their work. Despite this attention, college and university graduate research work on POEs has not been explored. The purpose of this meta-study using document analysis is to explore the characteristics and implications of college and university graduate POE research focusing on design/construction by analyzing the abstracts of graduate master’s theses and doctoral dissertations that substantially utilized the concept of POE. Results are reported by addressing the characteristics of the research degrees (location/place, type, year, institution, methods associated with the degree, and status of publication) and the characteristics of the research (settings, and focus). The article concludes by calling on the design/construction fields to explore ways to support a greater focus on the communication/coordination and dissemination of international graduate POE research.

Professor Edward Purcell was a physicist of great distinction. With Felix Bloch he received the joint award of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1952, for the developments respectively of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and nuclear induction. In 1951, H.L. Ewen and Purcell (21)* detected radiation at the hydrogen hyperfine frequency of 1421 MHz coming from interstellar space, which created a new branch of astronomy. The Smith–Purcell effect (28) is now regarded as a potentially powerful source of radiation in the far infrared region of the spectrum. These were further achievements of prize–winning quality. Edward Mills Purcell was born in Taylorville, Illinois, USA, the son of Edward A. Purcell and Mary Elizabeth Mills, both natives of Illinois. From public schools in Taylorville and Mattoon, Illinois, he won a scholarship to Purdue University, Indiana. He graduated in 1933 in electrical engineering and published two papers (1, 2) on thin films with Professor K. Lark–Horowitz. Realizing that Purcell's gifts and interests lay in mathematics and physics, Lark–Horowitz invited him to take part in a research project on electron diffraction while he was still an undergraduate, and then recommended him for an exchange studentship in Germany. Purcell spent a year studying physics at the Technische Hochschule in Karlsruhe, with Professor W. Wenzel. On his return he entered Harvard University to work under J.H. Van Vleck (For.Mem.R.S. 1967; Nobel Laureate in Physics 1981). With Malcolm Hebb, who later became Director of Research at the Laboratories of the General Electric Company in Schenectady, New York, he made a theoretical study (3) of the properties of paramagnetic salts below 1 K. This publication was widely used for the interpretation of magnetic cooling experiments in low–ndash;temperature physics, including my own thesis work in 1937–39. Later, when I mentioned it, Purcell, always a modest man, said, ‘that was all Hebb’.

Refereed publications (also known as peer-reviewed) are the currency of academia, yet many PhD theses in Australia result in only one or two such papers. Typically, a doctoral thesis requires the candidate to present (and pass) a public Confirmation Seminar, around nine to twelve months into candidacy, in which a panel of the candidate’s supervisors and invited experts adjudicate upon whether the work is likely to continue and ultimately succeed in the goal of a coherent and original contribution to knowledge. A Final Seminar, also public and sometimes involving the traditional viva voce or oral defence of the thesis, is presented two or three months before approval is given to send the 80,000 to 100,000 word tome off for external examination. And that soul-destroying or elation-releasing examiner’s verdict can be many months in the delivery: a limbo-like period during which the candidate’s status as a student is ended and her or his receipt of any scholarship or funding guerdon is terminated with perfunctory speed. This is the only time most students spend seriously writing up their research for publication although, naturally, many are more involved in job hunting as they pin their hopes on passing the thesis examination.There is, however, a slightly more palatable alternative to this nail-biting process of the traditional PhD, and that is the PhD by Published Papers (also known as PhD by Publications or PhD by Published Works). The form of my own soon-to-be-submitted thesis, it permits the submission for examination of a collection of papers that have been refereed and accepted (or are in the process of being refereed) for publication in academic journals or books. Apart from the obvious benefits in getting published early in one’s (hopefully) burgeoning academic career, it also takes away a lot of the stress come final submission time. After all, I try to assure myself, the thesis examiners can’t really discredit the process of double-blind, peer-review the bulk of the thesis has already undergone: their job is to examine how well I’ve unified the papers into a cohesive thesis … right? But perhaps they should at least be wary, because, unfortunately, the requirements for this kind of PhD vary considerably from institution to institution and there have been some cases where the submitted work is of questionable quality compared to that produced by graduates from more demanding universities. Hence, this paper argues that in my subject area of interest—film and television studies—there is a huge range in the set requirements for doctorates, from universities that award the degree to film artists for prior published work that has undergone little or no academic scrutiny and has involved little or no on-campus participation to at least three Australian universities that require candidates be enrolled for a minimum period of full-time study and only submit scholarly work generated and published (or submitted for publication) during candidature. I would also suggest that uncertainty about where a graduate’s work rests on this continuum risks confusing a hard-won PhD by Published Papers with the sometimes risible honorary doctorate. Let’s begin by dredging the depths of those murky, quasi-academic waters to examine the occasionally less-than-salubrious honorary doctorate. The conferring of this degree is generally a recognition of an individual’s body of (usually published) work but is often conferred for contributions to knowledge or society in general that are not even remotely academic. The honorary doctorate does not usually carry with it the right to use the title “Dr” (although many self-aggrandising recipients in the non-academic world flout this unwritten code of conduct, and, indeed, Monash University’s Monash Magazine had no hesitation in describing its 2008 recipient, musician, screenwriter, and art-school-dropout Nick Cave, as “Dr Cave” (O’Loughlin)). Some shady universities even offer such degrees for sale or ‘donation’ and thus do great damage to that institution’s credibility as well as to the credibility of the degree itself. Such overseas “diploma mills”—including Ashwood University, Belford University, Glendale University and Suffield University—are identified by their advertising of “Life Experience Degrees,” for which a curriculum vitae outlining the prospective graduand’s oeuvre is accepted on face value as long as their credit cards are not rejected. An aspiring screen auteur simply specifies film and television as their major and before you can shout “Cut!” there’s a degree in the mail. Most of these pseudo-universities are not based in Australia but are perfectly happy to confer their ‘titles’ to any well-heeled, vanity-driven Australians capable of completing the online form. Nevertheless, many academics fear a similarly disreputable marketplace might develop here, and Norfolk Island-based Greenwich University presents a particularly illuminating example. Previously empowered by an Act of Parliament consented to by Senator Ian Macdonald, the then Minister for Territories, this “university” had the legal right to confer honorary degrees from 1998. The Act was eventually overridden by legislation passed in 2002, after a concerted effort by the Australian Universities Quality Agency Ltd. and the Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee to force the accreditation requirements of the Australian Qualifications Framework upon the institution in question, thus preventing it from making degrees available for purchase over the Internet. Greenwich University did not seek re-approval and soon relocated to its original home of Hawaii (Brown). But even real universities flounder in similarly muddy waters when, unsolicited, they make dubious decisions to grant degrees to individuals they hold in high esteem. Although meaning well by not courting pecuniary gain, they nevertheless invite criticism over their choice of recipient for their honoris causa, despite the decision usually only being reached after a process of debate and discussion by university committees. Often people are rewarded, it seems, as much for their fame as for their achievements or publications. One such example of a celebrity who has had his onscreen renown recognised by an honorary doctorate is film and television actor/comedian Billy Connolly who was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters by The University of Glasgow in 2006, prompting Stuart Jeffries to complain that “something has gone terribly wrong in British academia” (Jeffries). Eileen McNamara also bemoans the levels to which some institutions will sink to in search of media attention and exposure, when she writes of St Andrews University in Scotland conferring an honorary doctorate to film actor and producer, Michael Douglas: “What was designed to acknowledge intellectual achievement has devolved into a publicity grab with universities competing for celebrity honorees” (McNamara). Fame as an actor (and the list gets even weirder when the scope of enquiry is widened beyond the field of film and television), seems to be an achievement worth recognising with an honorary doctorate, according to some universities, and this kind of discredit is best avoided by Australian institutions of higher learning if they are to maintain credibility. Certainly, universities down under would do well to follow elsewhere than in the footprints of Long Island University’s Southampton College. Perhaps the height of academic prostitution of parchments for the attention of mass media occurred when in 1996 this US school bestowed an Honorary Doctorate of Amphibious Letters upon that mop-like puppet of film and television fame known as the “muppet,” Kermit the Frog. Indeed, this polystyrene and cloth creation with an anonymous hand operating its mouth had its acceptance speech duly published (see “Kermit’s Acceptance Speech”) and the Long Island University’s Southampton College received much valuable press. After all, any publicity is good publicity. Or perhaps this furry frog’s honorary degree was a cynical stunt meant to highlight the ridiculousness of the practice? In 1986 a similar example, much closer to my own home, occurred when in anticipation and condemnation of the conferral of an honorary doctorate upon Prince Philip by Monash University in Melbourne, the “Members of the Monash Association of Students had earlier given a 21-month-old Chihuahua an honorary science degree” (Jeffries), effectively suggesting that the honorary doctorate is, in fact, a dog of a degree. On a more serious note, there have been honorary doctorates conferred upon far more worthy recipients in the field of film and television by some Australian universities. Indigenous film-maker Tracey Moffatt was awarded an honorary doctorate by Griffith University in November of 2004. Moffatt was a graduate of the Griffith University’s film school and had an excellent body of work including the films Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy (1990) and beDevil (1993). Acclaimed playwright and screenwriter David Williamson was presented with an Honorary Doctorate of Letters by The University of Queensland in December of 2004. His work had previously picked up four Australian Film Institute awards for best screenplay. An Honorary Doctorate of Visual and Performing Arts was given to film director Fred Schepisi AO by The University of Melbourne in May of 2006. His films had also been earlier recognised with Australian Film Institute awards as well as the Golden Globe Best Miniseries or Television Movie award for Empire Falls in 2006. Director George Miller was crowned with an Honorary Doctorate in Film from the Australian Film, Television, and Radio School in April 2007, although he already had a medical doctor’s testamur on his wall. In May of this year, filmmaker George Gittoes, a fine arts dropout from The University of Sydney, received an honorary doctorate by The University of New South Wales. His documentaries, Soundtrack to War (2005) and Rampage (2006), screened at the Sydney and Berlin film festivals, and he has been employed by the Australian Government as an official war artist. Interestingly, the high quality screen work recognised by these Australian universities may have earned the recipients ‘real’ PhDs had they sought the qualification. Many of these film artists could have just as easily submitted their work for the degree of PhD by Published Papers at several universities that accept prior work in lieu of an original exegesis, and where a film is equated with a book or journal article. But such universities still invite comparisons of their PhDs by Published Papers with honorary doctorates due to rather too-easy-to-meet criteria. The privately funded Bond University, for example, recommends a minimum full-time enrolment of just three months and certainly seems more lax in its regulations than other Antipodean institution: a healthy curriculum vitae and payment of the prescribed fee (currently AUD$24,500 per annum) are the only requirements. Restricting my enquiries once again to the field of my own research, film and television, I note that Dr. Ingo Petzke achieved his 2004 PhD by Published Works based upon films produced in Germany well before enrolling at Bond, contextualized within a discussion of the history of avant-garde film-making in that country. Might not a cynic enquire as to how this PhD significantly differs from an honorary doctorate? Although Petzke undoubtedly paid his fees and met all of Bond’s requirements for his thesis entitled Slow Motion: Thirty Years in Film, one cannot criticise that cynic for wondering if Petzke’s films are indeed equivalent to a collection of refereed papers. It should be noted that Bond is not alone when it comes to awarding candidates the PhD by Published Papers for work published or screened in the distant past. Although yet to grant it in the area of film or television, Swinburne University of Technology (SUT) is an institution that distinctly specifies its PhD by Publications is to be awarded for “research which has been carried out prior to admission to candidature” (8). Similarly, the Griffith Law School states: “The PhD (by publications) is awarded to established researchers who have an international reputation based on already published works” (1). It appears that Bond is no solitary voice in the academic wilderness, for SUT and the Griffith Law School also apparently consider the usual milestones of Confirmation and Final Seminars to be unnecessary if the so-called candidate is already well published. Like Bond, Griffith University (GU) is prepared to consider a collection of films to be equivalent to a number of refereed papers. Dr Ian Lang’s 2002 PhD (by Publication) thesis entitled Conditional Truths: Remapping Paths To Documentary ‘Independence’ contains not refereed, scholarly articles but the following videos: Wheels Across the Himalaya (1981); Yallambee, People of Hope (1986); This Is What I Call Living (1988); The Art of Place: Hanoi Brisbane Art Exchange (1995); and Millennium Shift: The Search for New World Art (1997). While this is a most impressive body of work, and is well unified by appropriate discussion within the thesis, the cynic who raised eyebrows at Petzke’s thesis might also be questioning this thesis: Dr Lang’s videos all preceded enrolment at GU and none have been refereed or acknowledged with major prizes. Certainly, the act of releasing a film for distribution has much in common with book publishing, but should these videos be considered to be on a par with academic papers published in, say, the prestigious and demanding journal Screen? While recognition at awards ceremonies might arguably correlate with peer review there is still the question as to how scholarly a film actually is. Of course, documentary films such as those in Lang’s thesis can be shown to be addressing gaps in the literature, as is the expectation of any research paper, but the onus remains on the author/film-maker to demonstrate this via a detailed contextual review and a well-written, erudite argument that unifies the works into a cohesive thesis. This Lang has done, to the extent that suspicious cynic might wonder why he chose not to present his work for a standard PhD award. Another issue unaddressed by most institutions is the possibility that the publications have been self-refereed or refereed by the candidate’s editorial colleagues in a case wherein the papers appear in a book the candidate has edited or co-edited. Dr Gillian Swanson’s 2004 GU thesis Towards a Cultural History of Private Life: Sexual Character, Consuming Practices and Cultural Knowledge, which addresses amongst many other cultural artefacts the film Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean 1962), has nine publications: five of which come from two books she co-edited, Nationalising Femininity: Culture, Sexuality and Cinema in Britain in World War Two, (Gledhill and Swanson 1996) and Deciphering Culture: Ordinary Curiosities and Subjective Narratives (Crisp et al 2000). While few would dispute the quality of Swanson’s work, the persistent cynic might wonder if these five papers really qualify as refereed publications. The tacit understanding of a refereed publication is that it is blind reviewed i.e. the contributor’s name is removed from the document. Such a system is used to prevent bias and favouritism but this level of anonymity might be absent when the contributor to a book is also one of the book’s editors. Of course, Dr Swanson probably took great care to distance herself from the refereeing process undertaken by her co-editors, but without an inbuilt check, allegations of cronyism from unfriendly cynics may well result. A related factor in making comparisons of different university’s PhDs by Published Papers is the requirements different universities have about the standard of the journal the paper is published in. It used to be a simple matter in Australia: the government’s Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) held a Register of Refereed Journals. If your benefactor in disseminating your work was on the list, your publications were of near-unquestionable quality. Not any more: DEST will no longer accept nominations for listing on the Register and will not undertake to rule on whether a particular journal article meets the HERDC [Higher Education Research Data Collection] requirements for inclusion in publication counts. HEPs [Higher Education Providers] have always had the discretion to determine if a publication produced in a journal meets the requirements for inclusion in the HERDC regardless of whether or not the journal was included on the Register of Refereed Journals. As stated in the HERDC specifications, the Register is not an exhaustive list of all journals which satisfy the peer-review requirements (DEST). The last listing for the DEST Register of Refereed Journals was the 3rd of February 2006, making way for a new tiered list of academic journals, which is currently under review in the Australian tertiary education sector (see discussion of this development in the Redden and Mitchell articles in this issue). In the interim, some university faculties created their own rankings of journals, but not the Faculty of Creative Industries at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) where I am studying for my PhD by Published Papers. Although QUT does not have a list of ranked journals for a candidate to submit papers to, it is otherwise quite strict in its requirements. The QUT University Regulations state, “Papers submitted as a PhD thesis must be closely related in terms of subject matter and form a cohesive research narrative” (QUT PhD regulation 14.1.2). Thus there is the requirement at QUT that apart from the usual introduction, methodology and literature review, an argument must be made as to how the papers present a sustained research project via “an overarching discussion of the main features linking the publications” (14.2.12). It is also therein stated that it should be an “account of research progress linking the research papers” (4.2.6). In other words, a unifying essay must make an argument for consideration of the sometimes diversely published papers as a cohesive body of work, undertaken in a deliberate journey of research. In my own case, an aural auteur analysis of sound in the films of Rolf de Heer, I argue that my published papers (eight in total) represent a journey from genre analysis (one paper) to standard auteur analysis (three papers) to an argument that sound should be considered in auteur analysis (one paper) to the major innovation of the thesis, aural auteur analysis (three papers). It should also be noted that unlike Bond, GU or SUT, the QUT regulations for the standard PhD still apply: a Confirmation Seminar, Final Seminar and a minimum two years of full-time enrolment (with a minimum of three months residency in Brisbane) are all compulsory. Such milestones and sine qua non ensure the candidate’s academic progress and intellectual development such that she or he is able to confidently engage in meaningful quodlibets regarding the thesis’s topic. Another interesting and significant feature of the QUT guidelines for this type of degree is the edict that papers submitted must be “published, accepted or submitted during the period of candidature” (14.1.1). Similarly, the University of Canberra (UC) states “The articles or other published material must be prepared during the period of candidature” (10). Likewise, Edith Cowan University (ECU) will confer its PhD by Publications to those candidates whose thesis consists of “only papers published in refereed scholarly media during the period of enrolment” (2). In other words, one cannot simply front up to ECU, QUT, or UC with a résumé of articles or films published over a lifetime of writing or film-making and ask for a PhD by Published Papers. Publications of the candidate prepared prior to commencement of candidature are simply not acceptable at these institutions and such PhDs by Published Papers from QUT, UC and ECU are entirely different to those offered by Bond, GU and SUT. Furthermore, without a requirement for a substantial period of enrolment and residency, recipients of PhDs by Published Papers from Bond, GU, or SUT are unlikely to have participated significantly in the research environment of their relevant faculty and peers. Such newly minted doctors may be as unfamiliar with the campus and its research activities as the recipient of an honorary doctorate usually is, as he or she poses for the media’s cameras en route to the glamorous awards ceremony. Much of my argument in this paper is built upon the assumption that the process of refereeing a paper (or for that matter, a film) guarantees a high level of academic rigour, but I confess that this premise is patently naïve, if not actually flawed. Refereeing can result in the rejection of new ideas that conflict with the established opinions of the referees. Interdisciplinary collaboration can be impeded and the lack of referee’s accountability is a potential problem, too. It can also be no less nail-biting a process than the examination of a finished thesis, given that some journals take over a year to complete the refereeing process, and some journal’s editorial committees have recognised this shortcoming. Despite being a mainstay of its editorial approach since 1869, the prestigious science journal, Nature, which only publishes about 7% of its submissions, has led the way with regard to varying the procedure of refereeing, implementing in 2006 a four-month trial period of ‘Open Peer Review’. Their website states, Authors could choose to have their submissions posted on a preprint server for open comments, in parallel with the conventional peer review process. Anyone in the field could then post comments, provided they were prepared to identify themselves. Once the usual confidential peer review process is complete, the public ‘open peer review’ process was closed and the editors made their decision about publication with the help of all reports and comments (Campbell). Unfortunately, the experiment was unpopular with both authors and online peer reviewers. What the Nature experiment does demonstrate, however, is that the traditional process of blind refereeing is not yet perfected and can possibly evolve into something less problematic in the future. Until then, refereeing continues to be the best system there is for applying structured academic scrutiny to submitted papers. With the reforms of the higher education sector, including forced mergers of universities and colleges of advanced education and the re-introduction of university fees (carried out under the aegis of John Dawkins, Minister for Employment, Education and Training from 1987 to 1991), and the subsequent rationing of monies according to research dividends (calculated according to numbers of research degree conferrals and publications), there has been a veritable explosion in the number of institutions offering PhDs in Australia. But the general public may not always be capable of differentiating between legitimately accredited programs and diploma mills, given that the requirements for the first differ substantially. From relatively easily obtainable PhDs by Published Papers at Bond, GU and SUT to more rigorous requirements at ECU, QUT and UC, there is undoubtedly a huge range in the demands of degrees that recognise a candidate’s published body of work. The cynical reader may assume that with this paper I am simply trying to shore up my own forthcoming graduation with a PhD by Published papers from potential criticisms that it is on par with a ‘purchased’ doctorate. Perhaps they are right, for this is a new degree in QUT’s Creative Industries faculty and has only been awarded to one other candidate (Dr Marcus Foth for his 2006 thesis entitled Towards a Design Methodology to Support Social Networks of Residents in Inner-City Apartment Buildings). But I believe QUT is setting a benchmark, along with ECU and UC, to which other universities should aspire. In conclusion, I believe further efforts should be undertaken to heighten the differences in status between PhDs by Published Papers generated during enrolment, PhDs by Published Papers generated before enrolment and honorary doctorates awarded for non-academic published work. Failure to do so courts cynical comparison of all PhD by Published Papers with unearnt doctorates bought from Internet shysters. References Brown, George. “Protecting Australia’s Higher Education System: A Proactive Versus Reactive Approach in Review (1999–2004).” Proceedings of the Australian Universities Quality Forum 2004. Australian Universities Quality Agency, 2004. 11 June 2008 ‹http://www.auqa.edu.au/auqf/2004/program/papers/Brown.pdf>. Campbell, Philip. “Nature Peer Review Trial and Debate.” Nature: International Weekly Journal of Science. December 2006. 11 June 2008 ‹http://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview/> Crisp, Jane, Kay Ferres, and Gillian Swanson, eds. Deciphering Culture: Ordinary Curiosities and Subjective Narratives. London: Routledge, 2000. Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST). “Closed—Register of Refereed Journals.” Higher Education Research Data Collection, 2008. 11 June 2008 ‹http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/research_sector/online_forms_services/ higher_education_research_data_ collection.htm>. Edith Cowan University. “Policy Content.” Postgraduate Research: Thesis by Publication, 2003. 11 June 2008 ‹http://www.ecu.edu.au/GPPS/policies_db/tmp/ac063.pdf>. Gledhill, Christine, and Gillian Swanson, eds. Nationalising Femininity: Culture, Sexuality and Cinema in Britain in World War Two. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1996. Griffith Law School, Griffith University. Handbook for Research Higher Degree Students. 24 March 2004. 11 June 2008 ‹http://www.griffith.edu.au/centre/slrc/pdf/rhdhandbook.pdf>. Jeffries, Stuart. “I’m a celebrity, get me an honorary degree!” The Guardian 6 July 2006. 11 June 2008 ‹http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/comment/story/0,,1813525,00.html>. Kermit the Frog. “Kermit’s Commencement Address at Southampton Graduate Campus.” Long Island University News 19 May 1996. 11 June 2008 ‹http://www.southampton.liu.edu/news/commence/1996/kermit.htm>. McNamara, Eileen. “Honorary senselessness.” The Boston Globe 7 May 2006. ‹http://www. boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/05/07/honorary_senselessness/>. O’Loughlin, Shaunnagh. “Doctor Cave.” Monash Magazine 21 (May 2008). 13 Aug. 2008 ‹http://www.monash.edu.au/pubs/monmag/issue21-2008/alumni/cave.html>. Queensland University of Technology. “Presentation of PhD Theses by Published Papers.” Queensland University of Technology Doctor of Philosophy Regulations (IF49). 12 Oct. 2007. 11 June 2008 ‹http://www.mopp.qut.edu.au/Appendix/appendix09.jsp#14%20Presentation %20of%20PhD%20Theses>. Swinburne University of Technology. Research Higher Degrees and Policies. 14 Nov. 2007. 11 June 2008 ‹http://www.swinburne.edu.au/corporate/registrar/ppd/docs/RHDpolicy& procedure.pdf>. University of Canberra. Higher Degrees by Research: Policy and Procedures (The Gold Book). 7.3.3.27 (a). 15 Nov. 2004. 11 June 2008 ‹http://www.canberra.edu.au/research/attachments/ goldbook/Pt207_AB20approved3220arp07.pdf>.

This paper studies the features of the circle of Willis and cerebral aneurysm in patients with cerebral aneurysms through films of Multi-slice Computed Tomography (MSCT) at the Department of Radiology, Bach Mai Hospital, from March 2017 to March 2018. The study results show that female/male ratio was 2.37: 1; the number of patients with only one aneurysm accounted for 90.68%; Saccular aneurysm was more common than lozenge-shaped aneurysm; the rate of aneurysm ruptures was 82.35%; the bulge was mainly distributed in the carotid artery (94.6%). The very small bulge (less than 3mm) and the small bulge (3-7mm) were most common and accounted for 33.33% and 49.62%, respectively. The variations of the circle of Willis were very diverse and complex, including 13 forms, four of which were the circle of Willis anterior part variants and nine transformations were the circle of Willis posterior variants. Abnormalities (aplasia, hypoplasia) of the anterior communicating arterial were 8.48% and abnormalities of the posterior communicating arterial were 82.6%. The paper concludes that the abnormal anatomical variations in the circle of Willis can facilitate the early diagnosis and treatment of cerebral aneurysm disease.
 Keywords
 Circle of Willis, cerebral aneurysm, MSCT.
 References
 [1] C.S. Hee, L.J. Ye, R.K. Hwa, et al. Diagnosis of Cerebral Aneurysm Via Magnetic Resonance Angiography Screening: Emphasis on Legal Responsibility Increases False Positive Rate, Neurointervention 13(1) (2018) 48-53. [2] T.A. Tuan, Research the value of the diagnosis of cerebral aneurysm by 64 slices computer tomography, Graduate thesis in resident doctor, Hanoi Medical University, 2008 (in Vietnamese).[3] M.W. Son, J.W. Park, K.J. Park, et al, Prognostic Factors of Clinical Outcome after Aneurysmal Clipping in the Aged Patients with Unruptured Intracranial Aneurysm, Journal of Neurointensive Care 3(1) (2020) 20-25. [4] H.M. Tu, N.X. Khoa, Study on the anatomical changes of the cerebral arteries on the MSCT 64 imaging, Thesis Master of Medicine, Hanoi Medical University, 2012 (in Vietnamese).[5] Z. Molnar, W. Thomas (1621-1675), the founder of clinical neuroscience, Nat Rev Neurosci 5(4) (2004) 329-335. [6] Q. Li, J. Li, F. Lv, et al., A multidetector CT angiography study of variations in the circle of Willis in a Chinese population, J Clin Neurosci. 18(3) (2011) 379–383.[7] A. Karatas, G. Coban, C. Cinar, et al., Assessment of the Circle of Willis with Cranial Tomography Angiography, ed Sci Monit. 21 (2015) 2647–2652, [8] S.A. Gunnel, M.S. Farooqui, R.N. Wabale, Anatomical variations of the circulus arteriosus in cadaveric human brains, Neurol Res Int.: 687281, http://doi.org/10.1155/2014/687281, indexed in Pubmed: 24891951 (2014).[9] I.Ö. Yeniçeri, Circle of Willis variations and artery diameter measurements in the Turkish population, Via Medica 76 (3) (2017) 420–425.

Electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) have traditionally taken the form of PDFs and ETD programs and their submission and curation procedures have been built around this format. However, graduate students are increasingly creating non-PDF files during their research, and in some cases these files are just as or more important than the PDFs that must be submitted to satisfy degree requirements. As a result, both graduate students and ETD administrators need training and resources to support the handling of a wide variety of complex digital objects. The Educopia Institute's ETDplus Toolkit provides a highly usable set of modules to address this need, openly licensed to allow for reuse and adaption to a variety of potential use cases.

Five graduate students in education were videotaped while drawing a visual representation of and verbally describing their thesis topic. Dialogue among the faculty supervisor, librarian, and student followed and the map was further developed. Comparison between individual and collaborative maps revealed how faculty-librarian prompts extended and enriched students’ conceptualization of the research process and its underlying themes.Cinq étudiants des cycles supérieurs en Éducation ont été filmés en train de dessiner une représentation visuelle de leur sujet de thèse tout en le décrivant verbalement. Suite à un dialogue entre le directeur de thèse, le bibliothécaire et l'étudiant, le plan mis au point a été encore développé. Une comparaison entre les plans individuels et les plans mis au point collectivement a révélé combien les suggestions du professeur et du bibliothécaire ont permis d’étendre et d’enrichir les conceptualisations par les étudiants de leurs processus de recherche et des thèmes sous-jacents.

With The Cuddle Club, I intended to make a film that sought to examine intimacy as it relates to the extremes; in the film I subvert expectations of intimacy to make the audience reconsider why we draw our physical boundaries where we do. And while everybody may need a little cuddle every now and then, men have no right to touch women without their express permission. This paper will be an examination of the story behind the story. Of my thoughts on the process of creating my thesis film The Cuddle Club as it pertains to the screenwriting, preproduction, production and postproduction process. There will be a step-by-step analysis of the plot, as well as an introduction explaining how The Cuddle Club came to be. The Appendix will include all of the documents created during the preproduction process.

The Blanket of the Dark is a psychological thriller that explores the horrors of postpartum psychosis, a rare but serious illness a new mother can experience in the days and weeks following the birth of her child. The film is an intimate portrayal of the psychology of a new mother suffering from the hallucinations and delusions that are symptoms of this horrific and oftentimes undiagnosed illness. In the end, motherhood for women with undiagnosed postpartum psychosis is anything but joyful, and can lead to suicide and murder. This paper is a candid analysis, a production report as it were, of the making of my thesis film, The Blanket of the Dark. I will begin with an introduction to how The Blanket of the Dark came to be, and then dive into a detailed plot analysis along with “behind-the-scenes” accounts of my thoughts and experiences on screenwriting, preproduction, production and postproduction process. All documents used during production are included in the appendix. I hope that future filmmakers will read my about my journey and know that, while filmmaking is one of the most challenging experiences anyone can have and questions about their talents and merits may arise, the insecurities and perceived impossibilities are hurdles that any filmmaker can overcome.

This thesis is a detailed demonstration of the process of writing, pre-production, production, editing and exhibition applied to the short narrative film, Her Closet. It critiques the film from story conception, directing and writing applications especially. Contexts for the film are applied in topics of film genre, story form and psychological approaches. This written thesis serves to explain the development of Her Closet and demonstrate the interests and inspirations of the filmmaker.

This paper is an examination of the production of the thesis film The Confessional. Each of the key areas of the production are examined, including the writing, directing, production design, cinematography, editing, sound, and technology. In each of these areas, many choices came together to form the final version of the film. The paper also includes an analysis of the success of these decisions, based on research and audience feedback.

In this paper, I will catalog and describe my process involved in the creation of my thesis film If Not Now. In the main body of the paper I will cover the topics of Writing, Casting, Directing, Production Design, Cinematography, Editing, and Sound, as well as Technology and Workflow. Special emphasis will be placed on Writing, Directing, Editing, and Sound. The Analysis section will discuss the overall effectiveness of my goals to communicate a story about self-identity and community, as well as the film's artistic merit and quality.

The report details the conceptual development, pre-production, production, and post-production stages of making Lost Nights. Lost Nights is a short, narrative film about two brothers who go out for one last night before the younger brother leaves for basic training. The film was produced as my graduate thesis film in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin.<br>text

Arts and humanities education is widespread in undergraduate but almost nonexistent in postgraduate medical education where it is arguably more helpful. This book fills that gap. It covers a wide range of arts and humanities subjects including film, theatre, narrative, visual art, history, ethics, and social sciences. Each chapter provides not only 1) a literature review of the relevant subject in postgraduate medical education and, where helpful, undergraduate medical education but 2) a theoretical discussion of the subject as it relates to medicine and medical education 3) challenges to implementing arts and humanities programming and 4) appendices with a number of different and relevant resources as well as sample lesson plans. There is a chapter on the use of humanities in interprofessional education, a domain whose importance has recently gained prominence. Finally there are also chapters guiding the medical humanities educator on evaluating the impact of their programs, an ever-present challenge, and on the thorny issue of how to fund programs in medical humanities.

When David Lynch's film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, a prequel to the television series Twin Peaks, premiered at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival, it was met with met with outright hostility. Subsequent reviews from critics were almost unanimously negative, and many fans of the show felt betrayed, as their beloved town was suddenly revealed as a personal hell. Yet in the years since the film's release, there has begun to be a gradual wave of reappraisal and appreciation, one that accelerated with the broadcast of Twin Peaks: The Return in 2017. What has been central to this reevaluation is the realization that what Lynch had created was not a parody of soap opera and detective television but a horror movie. This book argues that the horror genre aids Lynch's purpose in presenting the protagonist Laura Palmer's subjective experience leading to her death as the incorporation of horror tropes actually leads to a more accurate representation of a victim's suffering and confusion. The book goes on to explore how the film was an attempt by Lynch to take back ownership of the material and to examine the initial reaction and subsequent reevaluation of the film, as well as the paratexts that link to it and the influence that Fire Walk with Me now has on contemporary film and across popular culture.

Between 1926 and 1933, the Empire Marketing Board used a myriad of advertisements, posters, exhibits, and films to promote the empire's food products to British homes. The publicity campaigns were intended to show that tea from India or fruit from Australia was not foreign, but also British. Whether the Board was successful in its bid to promote intra-imperial food consumption, indeed, whether those efforts were needed in the first place, was not clear. This article focuses on foods from Asia and America that were originally thought to be exotic in Europe, initially served as indicators of elite status, and their gradual dissemination downwards. It also examines the role of long-distance trade and modern technologies in the production and distribution of new agro-industrial foods across networks of imperial knowledge and commodity circulation. The article concludes by assessing the impact of global food corporations' domination in the contemporary era, which in many ways can be seen as the equivalent of the European and American empire of the past.

This book is a text in microeconomics that is both challenging and “user-friendly.” The work is designed for the first-year graduate microeconomic theory course and is accessible to advanced undergraduates as well. Placing unusual emphasis on modern noncooperative game theory, it provides the student and instructor with a unified treatment of modern microeconomic theory — one that stresses the behavior of the individual actor (consumer or firm) in various institutional settings. The author has taken special pains to explore the fundamental assumptions of the theories and techniques studied, pointing out both strengths and weaknesses. The book begins with an exposition of the standard models of choice and the market, with extra attention paid to choice under uncertainty and dynamic choice. General and partial equilibrium approaches are blended, so that the student sees these approaches as points along a continuum. The work then turns to more modern developments. Readers are introduced to noncooperative game theory and shown how to model games and determine solution concepts. Models with incomplete information, the folk theorem and reputation, and bilateral bargaining are covered in depth, followed by exploration of information economics. A closing discussion concerns firms as organizations and gives readers a taste of transaction-cost economics.

It's not often that a remake outshines its original but David Cronenberg's “reimagining” of The Fly (1986) is one of those rare exceptions. Equal parts horror, science fiction, and romance, The Fly takes the premise of its 1958 original — a man unintentionally fusing with a housefly during an experiment in teleportation — and reinterprets the plot as a gradual cellular metamorphosis between these two organisms. This book teases out the intricate DNA of The Fly and how it represents the personalities of many authors, including a distinguished history of Man-as-God tales stretching back to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818). Drawing from interviews with cast, crew, film commentators, and other filmmakers, the book interlaces the “making of” travails of The Fly with why it is one of the most important examples of master storytelling ever committed to screen.

The Oxford Handbook of Banking, 3rd Edition provides an overview and analysis of developments and research in banking written by leading researchers in the field. This Handbook will appeal to graduate students of economics, banking and finance, academics, practitioners, regulators and policy makers. Consequently, the book strikes a balance between abstract theory, empirical analysis, and practitioner and policy-related material. The Handbook is split into five parts. Part I, The Theory of Banking, examines the role of banks in the wider financial system, why banks exist, how they function, the risks to which they are exposed and how these are managed, and their legal, organizational, and governance structures. Part II deals with Bank Activities and Performance. A variety of issues are assessed, including efficiency, technological change, globalization, and the ability to deliver small business, consumer, and mortgage lending services. Aspects relating to securitization, shadow banking, and payment systems are also covered. Part III entitled Regulatory and Policy Perspectives discusses the various roles of central banks, regulatory and supervisory authorities, and other government agencies which impact directly on the banking industry. Part IV of the Handbook entitled Macroeconomic Perspectives in Banking discusses interactions among banks, firms, and the macro-economy. This part of the Handbook covers the determinants of bank failures and crises, and the impact on financial stability, institutional development, and economic growth. The final Part V examines Banking Systems around the World. This section examines banking systems in the US, Japan, China, Africa, Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand.

Today, investor–state arbitration embodies the worst fears of those concerned about runaway globalization—a far cry from its framers’ intentions. Why did governments create a special legal system in which foreign investors can bring cases directly against states? This book takes readers through the key decisions that created investor–state arbitration, drawing on internal documents from several governments and extensive interviews to illustrate the politics behind this new legal system. The corporations and law firms that dominate investor–state arbitration today were not present at its creation. In fact, there was almost no lobbying from investors. Nor did powerful states have a strong preference for it. Nor was it created because there was evidence that it facilitates investment—there was no such evidence. International officials with peacebuilding and development aims drove the rise of investor–state arbitration. This book puts forward a new historical institutionalist explanation to illuminate how the actions of these officials kicked off a process of gradual institutional development. While these officials anticipated many developments, including an enormous caseload from investment treaties, over time this institutional framework they created has been put to new purposes by different actors. Institutions do not determine the purposes to which they may be put, and this book’s analysis illustrates how unintended consequences emerge and why institutions persist regardless.

It’s been argued that every good superhero needs an equally compelling supervillain. The Supervillain Reader sheds light on why “it’s all about the villain.” The editors have assembled a collection of both reprinted and original essays that tries to answer the question, Why are we so fascinated with the villain in our storytelling? The obsession with the villain is not some new phenomenon, and in fact one finds villains who are “super” going as far back as ancient religious and mythological texts. This innovative collection brings together essays, book excerpts, and original content from a wide variety of scholars and writers, weaving a tapestry of thought regarding villains in all their manifestations, including film, literature, television, games, and, of course, comics and sequential art. While The Supervillain Readerfocuses on the latter, it goes beyond comic studies to show how the concept of the supervillain is part our larger historical and popular consciousness. The principal goal of this reader is to collect in a single volume articles that show how the villain is a complex part of any narrative regardless of original text. The villain must be compelling, stimulating, and pro-active, whereas the superhero (or protagonist) is most often re-active. Our reader brings into clear focus the unique aspects of villainy and shows why the villain is so compelling, while also providing a theoretical foundation for villainy in numerous media. The editors have carefully curated this collection, and we hope it will be of interest to professors teaching graduate and undergraduate courses, the students they teach, and serious observers of popular culture across professions.

This chapter argues that the relationship between the Hollywood novel and films about Hollywood underwent a reversal of sorts beginning in the late 1940s and early 1950s. It begins by examining how Los Angeles film noir of the 1940s set the stage for mainstream films to take direct aim at Hollywood. By 1950, the release of In a Lonely Place and Sunset Boulevard demonstrated Hollywood’s capacity to befoul its own nest as a handful of screenwriters, directors, and stars responded directly and critically to the industry’s rusting machinery. If film adaptations of Hollywood novels in the 1920s and 1930s had largely defanged the novels’ treatment of the industry, studio films around this time developed their own bite, especially amid the gradual collapse of the studio system.

This chapter examines how various versions of 1968 in this cultural context provided creative opportunities for social comment in a changing media culture, focusing primarily on American film. Attention is paid to films that proved exceptions to what had become a tentative norm by the mid-1960s such as The Graduate, Wild in the Streets and Easy Rider. As the counterculture found its way on to the screen, Hollywood was slower to see the financial merits of civil rights themes. More revealing is how civil rights issues were used suggestively in different genres, including the big budget musical Finian’s Rainbow and the low budget horror film Night of the Living Dead before finding more explicit dramatization in the early 1970s. The chapter argues that in the late 1960s dissent was more likely to be couched or exploited as melodrama than transformed into high-quality political cinema and box office success.

This chapter analyzes the circumstances of Levine’s sale of his company, Embassy, to the Avco Corporation in 1968. Because of various interrelated factors, corporations were looking to take over film companies in the mid- to late 1960s, and Levine stood to benefit greatly. Embassy was privately owned, had a huge library of films that were attractive to television, was not burdened by real estate or equipment, and had just had a huge success with The Graduate. Levine turned all of these positive points to his advantage and sold Embassy to Avco for an astonishing $40 million in the bubble created by the corporate feeding frenzy. This chapter also investigates two of Levine’s productions from this time, The Producers and The Lion in Winter, both of which stand as examples of Levine’s continued willingness to take risks.

At the same time that Wolper was building his studio and staffing it with the producers Mel Stuart, Alan Landsburg, and Jack Haley Jr., film school graduates were looking for employment in the city. This chapter focuses on Kent Mackenzie, who, like other talented, university-trained filmmakers, worked for Wolper Productions, the USIA, and film firms that catered to the educational and business sectors. These jobs offered a rewarding alternative to studio fiction but also entailed ideological and formal constraints. During this period, Mackenzie drew on the resources of his day jobs, along with the pro bono efforts of his colleagues, to make The Exiles (1961). Examining the major thrust of Mackenzie’s career reveals the professional challenges and opportunities for young filmmakers interested in making socially engaged documentary.

This chapter examines two counterculture films made by Levine during his tenure at Avco, the deterioration of his relationship with Mike Nichols, and his return to independence upon resigning from Avco. His politics were somewhat ambiguous, but he made two significant films in 1970 that were rooted in contemporary countercultural concerns, Bright College Years and Soldier Blue, and both show his commitment to supporting interesting films even in his quietest years. Levine also made two further films with Mike Nichols while still at Avco: Carnal Knowledge was reasonably successful, but Day of the Dolphin was a failure. This chapter analyzes all of these films in the context of Levine’s disillusionment at Avco. It also details his promotional campaign for his first post-Avco success, The Night Porter. The Avco years were quiet for Levine, but on becoming an independent once again, he returned to movie promotion with a gusto not seen since his involvement in The Graduate.

Contemporary education system in India was initiated by the British for the maintenance of their imperial administration. After India became an independent country, conscious efforts were made to overhaul the educational system to produce proper administrators and contributors for Indian polity, economy and culture. To assess dynamics of Indian education, various committees and commissions were formed. It also meant change in education programs, curricula and syllabi to meet national needs and global challenges. Most universities in India have limited infrastructure, thus the role of private or deemed to be university becomes crucial. Christ University attending to the social structure, internationalization and employability demands, offers a number of quality educational programs to ensure employable graduates. This has led the way in devising pedagogy and curricula to align with the global higher education practices. Here we discuss the use of commercial feature film as a pedagogical tool in the classrooms within the Deanery of Humanities and Social Sciences and its implication.

This chapter connects Bier’s approach to genre with Danish cinema’s gradual shift, apparent since the 1990s, from realism and folk comedy to mainstream genres with greater international appeals. Author Birger Langkjær suggests that Bier’s romantic comedies and dramas evidence this broader shift, which he locates in a preference for ‘tight narrative structures’ observable in Danish cinema during the last several decades. Langkjær narrows his focus to Bier’s dramas, including Open Hearts (Elsker dig for evigt 2002), Brothers (Brødre 2004), After the Wedding (Efter brylluppet 2006), and In a Better World (Hævnen 2010), which have attracted significant international attention and praise, while also provoking criticism, particularly of their melodramatic and/or ‘schematic’ properties. Langkjær scrutinizes such criticism by examining the narrative structures of Bier’s dramas and proposing art cinema and realism as genres better suited to illuminating how Bier’s dramas function. He specifically highlights the tension between ‘the macro-structures of melodramatic story-telling and film realism’ and the films’ evocations of ‘a psychological intimacy with [their] characters and the trivialities’ of their everyday lives. It is precisely this tension, he concludes, that distinguishes Bier’s dramas from traditional Danish realism and the formulas conventionally associated with melodrama.

In this chapter, the authors study the importance of regional entrepreneurship as well as the characteristics of location, and show that the basis for creation of new firms is knowledge, thus giving emphasis to broadcasters (spillovers) of knowledge coming from universities and other R&amp;D institutions. Thus, the knowledge generated arises from the collaboration between companies and public research institutions (Audretsch &amp; Lehmann, 2005). Here, the authors specifically address the KIBS to the extent that they are creators, users, and transmitters of intensive knowledge. This shows the importance of the study of cooperation between universities and firms, especially KIBS. In this sense, the empirical results demonstrate that cooperation between KIBS and universities occurs independent of their location (rural or urban) and typology (professional or technological). The authors furthermore find that rural KIBS have increased their levels of graduate employment faster than their urban KIBS peers.

Youth unemployment is growing throughout the world due to a collection of conditions including but not exclusively: economic restrictions, anachronistic teaching and learning methodologies, and inadequate career guidance structures and support. These factors are the usual suspects and offer all stakeholders an easy way out in terms of the challenges associated with business start-ups and business initiations. That the contemporary educational environment is not effectively geared to support the emerging entrepreneur and is severely constrained by the limits of teacher training and curriculum flexibility is well recognised. With the growing demand for graduates to embrace an entrepreneurial ethos, the impact of support structures on the development of students is becoming more central to the required discourse in higher education, more especially, in developing countries without effective welfare structures. Central to this debate is the role of student attitudes towards the entrepreneurial route as a viable and achievable alternative to the conventional career pathways. Demands to generate a return from their education, familial expectations, and the need to develop as an individual can act as a further encumbrance to the embrace and exploration of business start-up opportunities. This study has generated a dataset of the dominant student attitudes to enterprise as a career pathway and general perspectives on enterprise and entrepreneurial activities. Through a number of partners, a cross section of students were invited to take an online survey addressing questions pertaining to entrepreneurship.

Abstract This paper presents a collection of M files created for applications of MATLAB software in graduate and undergraduate engineering classes. Starting with the simple need of printing a difference table, presented in order of increasing difficulty of numerical procedural setup and programming arrangement are M files for volume integration, animation of a rotating block, Runge-Kutta solution of a nonlinear oscillation problem, and solution of a warping function governed by Laplace equation using the relaxation method. Threading through these M files are the demonstrative applications of MATLAB’s own M files and its graphics commands and vector operations.

The topic of condensation heat transfer is usually included in a chapter on Boiling and Condensation in most Heat Transfer textbooks. The assumptions made are those of laminar liquid film with constant thermo-physical properties, uniform vapor temperature equal to the saturation temperature of the vapor, negligible shear at the liquid-vapor interface, and negligible momentum and energy transfer by advection in the condensate film. The results presented are normally for the film thickness, the local convective heat transfer coefficient, and the Nusselt number. However, no means are presented to the student to determine if all of these simplifying assumptions are actually satisfied for a given problem. This investigation clarifies these points to improve teaching of the material and understanding by the student at the undergraduate and graduate level.

Au/MoS2 nanocomposite films with high Au concentrations (75 to 90 at%), recently developed at The Aerospace Corp., have shown properties that are promising for use in sliding electrical contacts, such as slip rings and relays. For such applications, it is critical to maintain low contact resistance while maintaining low friction with controlled wear (i.e. removal and transfer of material). In this report, we present results from conductive atomic force microscopic (c-AFM) investigations of Au/MoS2 nanocomposite structures and their dynamic material transfer phenomena under a sliding contact, which are both important in understanding the friction, wear and conducting mechanisms of the films. We have performed c-AFM to obtain topography, friction and current images simultaneously. Remarkable morphological changes were observed in a series of current images which initially showed distinct nanoscale metallic (Au) and semiconducting (MoS2) phases that were relatively well dispersed, but repeated contact sliding in the same area resulted in gradual disappearance of the metallic phase and reduction of the overall friction. These results reveal that MoS2 is transferred across the surface to provide lubrication while Au particles at or near the surface provide electrical conductivity. The c-AFM results provide real-time and real-space visualization of the lubrication mechanism occurring inside a nanoscale sliding contact.

The need to provide students with hands-on instruction in the fabrication of Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) led to the development of an upper-undergraduate, introductory-graduate, laboratory course offered each spring in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering (MechSE). The laboratory is taught in a class 100 cleanroom located in, and operated by, the MechSE department. Fabrication and testing of two MEMS device projects, a piezoresistive membrane pressure sensor and a microfluidic logic chip, facilitate the teaching of standard fabrication procedures, fabrication tool operation, and cleanroom protocols. The course appeals across disciplines as evident by half the students coming from other departments (chemical engineering, chemistry, material science, physics, electrical engineering, aeronautical engineering, etc.). The course also serves to attract prospective graduate students as many students continue to use the cleanroom in their graduate level research. This course broadly covers MEMS fabrication theory while maintaining a focus on practical understanding and laboratory application of that theory. The lecture is tied closely to the laboratory work by covering the tool and procedure theory that is used in the lab each week. An exciting aspect of the course is the hands-on learning experience the students get by independently operating the fabrication equipment themselves, including metal deposition tools, reactive ion etch (RIE) tools, lithography tools (spinners, mask aligners, etc.), and bath etchers and cleaners. Safety is an important aspect of the course where students are tested on safety protocol, Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) and National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) familiarity, personal protection procedures, etc. The students also learn benchmark fabrication procedures including standard cleaning protocols (with ultrasonics), the Bosch RIE etching of silicon microstructures, and anisotropic etching of silicon. The piezoresistive membrane pressure sensor project facilitates an understanding of the residual stresses involved in thin-film deposition, stress-strain relationships, and signal analysis for transduction mechanisms. The microfluidic logic chip project, a chip of logic gates (NAND, NOR, etc.) and a half-adder, facilitates understanding fundamental principles of microfluidics, the Navier-Stokes equation, and flow in microchannels. This course, originally sponsored by Intel Corporation, prepares Mechanical Engineers in a multi-disciplinary environment to learn both the practical fundamentals and the theoretical basis of basic and advanced microfabrication that goes beyond the usual CMOS fabrication theory and methodology taught in Electrical Engineering for the microelectronics bound students. As evident from its popularity, the course also serves to excite and equip students for the important Mechanical Engineering field of MEMS.

In the context of higher education in the XXI century, the different stakeholders (markets, firms, households, States) assume prospective University graduates will be responsible for providing solutions to the most challenging societal problems, delivering sustainable projects and contributing to improve the quality of life of citizenship controlling for the local but also global impact. Academic staff adapt their role continuously to foster students into the acquisition of competences and skills to better fulfill the societal demands.This paper deals with the process of conceptualization, design and implementation of a PBL workshop in an international and multidisciplinary environment. The ISA lab workshop was envisioned by an academic who ideated, planned, designed and empowered others into action. The result was the first edition of the ISA lab workshop, an international multidisciplinary workshop on sustainability.

Electrical performance of degraded MEMS metallic switches (ohmic contacts) is studied analytically in this paper. The degradation mechanism is based on gradual growth of an insulating film at the contact interface and the characteristics of the insulating film are assumed to be known without considering details regarding the physical and chemical origins of the growth mechanisms. The present study relies on recently developed theories for electrical contact resistance (ECR) of clean and fully-contaminated (i.e., the entire contact area is coated with an insulating film) rough surfaces thus, bridging the gap between these two extreme cases. A relationship is obtained between the degraded ECR and the metallic conductance area. The effect of tunneling currents on the performance of partially-contaminated surfaces is found to be negligible due to the considerable current flow across the metallic asperity contacts.

This paper presents the recent experience of teaching and learning “Green Engineering” in a multidisciplinary seminar. The instructors who organized the seminar included an environmental engineer and a mechanical/manufacturing engineer. The student population included both graduate and undergraduate students majoring in civil/environmental, mechanical, manufacturing and aerospace engineering as well as several biology majors. The course was organized as a semester long seminar with many guest speakers from industry, government, academia and law firms. In addition to assigned reading and literature searches/reviews, the main learning experiences were provided by two large team projects. The first multidisciplinary team project was a “game” that required the students to develop a facility to provide a variety of products that utilized materials that are toxic, hazardous and radioactive. The students were assigned various roles in the company including bidding, manufacturing, environmental and purchasing responsibilities. The teams were judged on both the financial and environmental success of their company. The second multidisciplinary major team project focused on the creation of a green product including, the design and manufacturing processes, as well as the business plan. The student interest in this project was enhanced by a competition with cash prizes that was financed and judged by WPI’s Entrepreneurship program’s faculty and staff.

In light of society’s increasing awareness with regards to the health of the environment, many engineering firms are hiring recent engineering graduates with project- (or course-) based experience in environmental sustainability. Currently engineering schools at the collegiate level have addressed this need by modifying their curricula by including additional coursework on sustainability related subjects. The next step of adaptation calls for a holistic treatment of sustainability concepts by integrating them within traditional coursework. Engineering schools have not yet addressed the best way to accomplish this integration due to the concerns stemming from the increase in cognitive load and scheduling pressure. Additionally, it has been shown that K-12 curricula also lack exposure to sustainable thinking. As a result, incoming freshmen are not aware of the inherent correlations between engineering principles, e.g. heat transfer, and environmental sustainability. To prepare the next generation of innovative thinkers to solve these complex, interdisciplinary issues, engineering principles must be contextualized in terms of sustainable design at both the K-12 and undergraduate levels. To meet this need, the authors developed a general framework for introducing sustainable design thinking into K-12 student projects. A pilot case is presented to illustrate a particular student’s (listed as a co-author) growth through a newly gained understanding of environmental sustainability through experimentation. The project specifically addresses various insulation materials for residential buildings by judging their individual environmental advantages and economic feasibility. The main outcome of this project is the extensive redesign of an existing undergraduate heat and mass transfer lab experiment.

Language change and contact in Vietnam has recently intensified among some demographic groups. As such, certain sociolinguistic patterns help to describe these changes in language and society. This study is aimed at observing and measuring dialect change in Vietnam influenced by urbanization, with evidence from a rural community in Hanoi, a speech community in Xuan Canh commune, Dong Anh district. The study investigates the ways in which dialect change in this region has developed according to specific social and cultural factors. The Xuan Canh speech community evidences a narrowing usage of local variants. For its method, the study employs fieldwork, and subsequent quantitative methods to aid in the analysis. The data set includes 34 informants, randomly selected, which were categorized into certain social variables. The study also released 34 questionnaires, 11 recorded files of natural speech, from which emerged two sets of 34 recorded files of word lists and a text. The results indicate a gradual reduction in the frequency of use of local variants, a decrease in the number of lexical forms with rural characteristics, and an increase in certain types of urban variants. This trend can be seen by observing changing social variables sensitive to urbanization, such as youths, officials, students, and hence people who have out-community communication scope. Here, the quantitative correlations prove statistically significant. The state of dialect change in this community thus signifies a phenomenon common to Vietnamese rural communities under the effect of the urbanization; that is, a tendency following language urbanization in Vietnam.

This study provides an experimental and theoretical investigation of the effect of the bearing friction coefficient and the thread friction on the self-loosening of threaded fasteners that are subjected to cyclic transverse service loads. Coating and lubrication affect the thread and the underhead friction of the fastener, which affects the loosening rate when it is subjected to transverse loads. A mathematical model was developed to evaluate the self-loosening behavior in threaded fasteners when subjected to cyclic transverse loads. An experimental procedure and test set up are designed in order to collect real-time data on the rate of preload loss per cycle as well as the rotational angle of the bolt head during its gradual loosening. The values of the coefficients of friction under the bolt head and between the threads were changed in the mathematical model to monitor their effect on the loosening rate. Experimentally, the friction coefficients are modified by changing the coating or the lubrication applied to the fasteners. One coating and one solid film lubricant are used, namely, phosphate and oil coating and Olefin and Molydisulfide lubricated bolts. The theoretical and experimental results are presented and discussed.

This study analyzes the return on investment for an agribusiness facilitation fund implemented in Rwanda. Combining project monitoring data with supplementary surveys and interviews of recipient agribusinesses, we find a positive return on investment in terms of farmer income generated per dollar spent by the US government. To determine the commercial viability of the investments, we estimate the payback period and find the median time it will take a firm to recoup the entire investment through profits is 3.7 years. We estimate the net present value of the entire fund portfolio to be $12.5 million. These estimates rely on conservative assumptions and likely underrepresent the profitability of the investments. Given the positive returns and commercial viability of the agribusinesses, we examine the fund’s role as a first step to “graduate” firms toward investment readiness. Although three firms did access equity investment, we find that the majority of the businesses in the portfolio do not meet investor requirements for deal size and management capacity and are more appropriately financed by commercial lenders. We conclude with recommendations for the implementation and measurement of similar funds.

From this edition, the Financial Stability Report will have fewer pages with some changes in its structure. The purpose of this change is to present the most relevant facts of the financial system and their implications on the financial stability. This allows displaying the analysis more concisely and clearly, as it will focus on describing the evolution of the variables that have the greatest impact on the performance of the financial system, for estimating then the effect of a possible materialization of these risks on the financial health of the institutions. The changing dynamics of the risks faced by the financial system implies that the content of the Report adopts this new structure; therefore, some analyses and series that were regularly included will not necessarily be in each issue. However, the statistical annex that accompanies the publication of the Report will continue to present the series that were traditionally included, regardless of whether or not they are part of the content of the Report. In this way we expect to contribute in a more comprehensive way to the study and analysis of the stability of the Colombian financial system. Executive Summary During the first half of 2015, the main advanced economies showed a slow recovery on their growth, while emerging economies continued with their slowdown trend. Domestic demand in the United States allowed for stabilization on its average growth for the first half of the year, while other developed economies such as the United Kingdom, the euro zone, and Japan showed a more gradual recovery. On the other hand, the Chinese economy exhibited the lowest growth rate in five years, which has resulted in lower global dynamism. This has led to a fall in prices of the main export goods of some Latin American economies, especially oil, whose price has also responded to a larger global supply. The decrease in the terms of trade of the Latin American economies has had an impact on national income, domestic demand, and growth. This scenario has been reflected in increases in sovereign risk spreads, devaluations of stock indices, and depreciation of the exchange rates of most countries in the region. For Colombia, the fall in oil prices has also led to a decline in the terms of trade, resulting in pressure on the dynamics of national income. Additionally, the lower demand for exports helped to widen the current account deficit. This affected the prospects and economic growth of the country during the first half of 2015. This economic context could have an impact on the payment capacity of debtors and on the valuation of investments, affecting the soundness of the financial system. However, the results of the analysis featured in this edition of the Report show that, facing an adverse scenario, the vulnerability of the financial system in terms of solvency and liquidity is low. The analysis of the current situation of credit institutions (CI) shows that growth of the gross loan portfolio remained relatively stable, as well as the loan portfolio quality indicators, except for microcredit, which showed a decrease in these indicators. Regarding liabilities, traditional sources of funding have lost market share versus non-traditional ones (bonds, money market operations and in the interbank market), but still represent more than 70%. Moreover, the solvency indicator remained relatively stable. As for non-banking financial institutions (NBFI), the slowdown observed during the first six months of 2015 in the real annual growth of the assets total, both in the proprietary and third party position, stands out. The analysis of the main debtors of the financial system shows that indebtedness of the private corporate sector has increased in the last year, mostly driven by an increase in the debt balance with domestic and foreign financial institutions. However, the increase in this latter source of funding has been influenced by the depreciation of the Colombian peso vis-à-vis the US dollar since mid-2014. The financial indicators reflected a favorable behavior with respect to the historical average, except for the profitability indicators; although they were below the average, they have shown improvement in the last year. By economic sector, it is noted that the firms focused on farming, mining and transportation activities recorded the highest levels of risk perception by credit institutions, and the largest increases in default levels with respect to those observed in December 2014. Meanwhile, households have shown an increase in the financial burden, mainly due to growth in the consumer loan portfolio, in which the modalities of credit card, payroll deductible loan, revolving and vehicle loan are those that have reported greater increases in risk indicators. On the side of investments that could be affected by the devaluation in the portfolio of credit institutions and non-banking financial institutions (NBFI), the largest share of public debt securities, variable-yield securities and domestic private debt securities is highlighted. The value of these portfolios fell between February and August 2015, driven by the devaluation in the market of these investments throughout the year. Furthermore, the analysis of the liquidity risk indicator (LRI) shows that all intermediaries showed adequate levels and exhibit a stable behavior. Likewise, the fragility analysis of the financial system associated with the increase in the use of non-traditional funding sources does not evidence a greater exposure to liquidity risk. Stress tests assess the impact of the possible joint materialization of credit and market risks, and reveal that neither the aggregate solvency indicator, nor the liquidity risk indicator (LRI) of the system would be below the established legal limits. The entities that result more individually affected have a low share in the total assets of the credit institutions; therefore, a risk to the financial system as a whole is not observed. José Darío Uribe Governor