Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2003, Comparative Arts (Fine Arts)

This dissertation explores the formal elements of Robert Wilson's art, with a focus on two in particular: time and space, through the methodology of Chaos Theory. Although this theory is widely practiced by physicists and mathematicians, it can be utilized with other disciplines, in this case visual arts and theater. By unfolding the complex layering of space and time in Wilson's art, it is possible to see the hidden reality behind these artifacts. The study reveals that by applying this scientific method to the visual arts and theater, one can best understand the nonlinear and fragmented forms of Wilson's art. Moreover, the study demonstrates that time and space are Wilson's primary structuring tools and are bound together in a self-renewing process. Each image is not the death of time and space but its own simulation, individual and singular. The study identifies some of the parallels between Wilson's art, Chaos Theory and Postmodernism, specifically, their orientation towards chance and indeterminacy and their shared idea that nature and reality are unpredictable, because life itself is open to the unexpected and therefore always fresh and new. The dissertation ultimately seeks to promote communication across disciplines.

Committee: Charles Buchanan (Advisor) Subjects: Fine Arts

Doctor of Business Administration (D.B.A.), Franklin University, 2022, Business Administration

The global pandemic posed an uncertain economic environment that required holistic thinking to succeed, especially for asset managers. Due to the complexity, severity, and unprecedented nature of the environment, there was a need to possess skills beyond analytical intelligence that allowed for thriving in ambiguity and uncertainty. Emotional intelligence and resilience are two of the proposed skills applicable in this environment. High levels of emotional intelligence help individuals navigate ambiguity, read situations, and pose more holistic solutions. Resilience allows individuals to rebound from misinterpretations of indicators quickly. A non-experimental, correlational study quantitatively examined asset managers, gathering anonymous demographic, emotional intelligence, and resilience data. The researcher measured their self-reported emotional intelligence using the Self-Reported Emotional Intelligence Test (SREIT) and resilience using the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale 10 (CD-RISC10), with a multi-part electronic assessment delivered using SurveyMonkey. Both instruments used a five-point Likert scale to measure the independent variables. An asset management industry-related professional organization circulated the email inviting study participation. Asset managers self-selected to participate. There was no segregation regarding age, gender, experience, years in the role, or educational background. Hypotheses posed a positive relationship between emotional intelligence and resilience. From a theoretical standpoint, the constructs of chaos and intentional change theories were used as lenses to view the study results. The study uncovered a modest correlation between emotional intelligence and resilience and concluded with implications and suggestions for further research.

Committee: Kathy Richie (Committee Chair); Bethany Poore (Committee Member); Susan Campbell (Committee Member) Subjects: Business Administration; Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), University of Dayton, 2020, Theology

Recent years have witnessed a greater acknowledgement among physicists and theologians that theology and physics have something to say to each other with regard to the endeavor to better understand God's relationship to the world. Modern physics has been led by contemporary scientific pioneers who saw unique ways to solve problems that began to arise as more and more aspects of physical reality were investigated and required explanation. The insights arising from these physicists served to banish the older traditional scientific view of the universe as a “grand machine”. One of the results of this modified scientific view of the nature of the universe has been renewed dialog between physics and theology in a new with a whole new set of challenges to longstanding questions about God's relation to the world. One of the major participants in this discussion is John Polkinghorne, a highenergy particle physicist and Anglican priest, who approaches the pursuit of knowledge by beginning with physics and proceeding to examine the realm of natural phenomena for evidence of agreement and consistency with the claims of religious faith. Polkinghorne's view seems to offer promise because of 1) his effort to remain true to the tenets of the Christian faith, and 2) his reliance on sound modern science and mathematics (in particular quantum indeterminacy and chaos theory). The promise Polkinghorne offers is the use of intellectual pursuit, by way of modern physics, in order to facilitate faith's search for understanding with regard to the question of God's relationship with the world. This can have implications not only for academic theology, but also for Christians' grasp of various religious concepts such as creation, prayer, miracles, and the nature of God, all of which are key doctrines believers deal with each day. Polkinghorne has said of his own endeavors in this area “My concern is to explore to what extent we can use the search for motivated unde (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Daniel Thompson Ph.D. (Advisor); Brad Kallenberg Ph.D. (Committee Member); Vincent Miller Ph.D. (Committee Member); Dennis Doyle Ph.D. (Committee Member); Allen McGrew Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Epistemology; Mathematics; Physics; Quantum Physics; Science History; Theology; Theoretical Physics

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2022, Higher Education (Education)

The purpose of this dissertation was to explore how liberal arts students develop their post-graduation career plans. Utilizing an embedded case study approach, I interviewed 24 recent English alumnx and 3 current faculty at two different higher education institution types. Pryor and Bright's (2011) chaos theory of careers served as the study's conceptual framework, which focuses on the roles of complex influences, chance events, and change on an individual's career development. In the first article, I examined what experiences shaped the post-graduation career plans for liberal arts students. Findings demonstrated that campus employment such as working for a campus-based literary magazine, internship participation such as working for an out-of-state employer, and college courses such as taking an intro to publishing class, shaped liberal arts alumnx career plans. In the second article, I explored who influences liberal arts students' career development. Findings indicated that professors and academic advisors, alumnx and industry professionals, and family members shaped liberal arts graduates' career plans. Professors and academic advisors shared resources and advice, alumnx and industry professionals offered insights about the job market, and family members provided support and at times places pressure on participants. In the third article, I investigated how chance events may change the post-graduation career plans of liberal arts graduates. Findings revealed that chance events do influence liberal arts students' career planning by either setting their career paths such as serendipitously landing a new job or changing their career paths such as learning about a new career pathway. I conclude this dissertation by discussing implications for theory, practice, and future research.

Committee: David Nguyen (Advisor) Subjects: Higher Education

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2006, Arts and Sciences : English and Comparative Literature

This dissertation, Strange Houses, is a collection of original short stories by the author, Joseph Alex DeBonis. The stories engage notions about home, family, estrangement, and alienation. Since many of the stories deal with family and marital relations, homes feature prominently in the action and as settings. Often characters are estranged or exiled, and their obsessions with having normal families and/or stable lives drive them to construct elaborate fantasies in which they are included, loved, and part of something enduring that is larger than themselves. The dissertation also includes a critical paper, “A Butterfly, a Cannonball, and a Sneeze: Notions of Chaos Theory in Cormac McCarthy's All The Pretty Horses and Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49.” In this essay, I argue that the novel All The Pretty Horses grapples with a sense of freedom that is rife with ambiguity and demonstrates McCarthy's engagement with chaos theory. The essay shows how Thomas Pynchon, in The Crying of Lot 49, exhibits similar concerns with the dynamic interaction of order and disorder. Though Horses has realistic details and does not appear to engage chaos theory in as obvious a way as The Crying of Lot 49 does, McCarthy's novel can be profitably read through the lens of chaos theory.

Committee: Michael Griffith (Advisor) Subjects: Literature, American

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2011, Human Ecology: Human Development and Family Science

The goal of this study was to explore how home and school environment could promote behavioral self-regulation in preschool children for successful school-readiness. Based on Ecological Systems Theory and Self-Determination Theory, this study has explored the influence of home structure, preschool classroom structure, and preschool teachers' autonomy-support on the development of preschool children's behavioral self-regulation. The results of this study showed that Teacher's autonomy-support was the only significant predictor for behavioral self-regulation after controlling for child age and family income. No interaction effect between home and preschool environment could be found. This study suggests that the teacher's interaction with the child is more important than the class organization for development of child behavioral self-regulation in preschool classrooms. Also, the influence of family income was the largest, implicating that the intervention effort should be focused on children from economically disadvantaged families. Future directions regarding the age-appropriate measures and optimal teacher-child interaction relationship have been suggested.

Committee: Cynthia Buettner (Advisor); Xin Feng (Committee Member) Subjects: Behavioral Sciences; Education; Families and Family Life

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2011, Mathematics

Results are divided into three chapters. Each chapter studies several classes of topological dynamical systems and derives results relating chaoticity to the existence of invariant measures, and equidistribution behavior. Chapter 1 is an introduction. In Chapter 2, we prove that if a countable group G acts transitively on a compact metric space, preserving a probability measure of full support, then the system is either equicontinuous, or has sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Assuming ergodicity, we get the same conclusion without countability. Additionally, we prove that when a finitely generated, solvable group, acts transitively and certain cyclic sub-actions have dense sets of minimal points, then the system has sensitive dependence on initial conditions. In Chapter 3, we prove that for a minimal translation T on a compact 2-step nilmanifold X and any Borel probability measure mu on X, the push-forward T^n_star mu of mu under T^n tends toward Haar measure if and only if mu projects to Haar measure on the maximal torus factor. For an arbitrary nilmanifold we get the same result along a sequence of uniform density 1. Using different methods, we derive the same result for a large class of iterated skew products. Additionally we prove a multiplicative ergodic theorem for functions taking values in the upper unipotent group. Finally, we characterize limits of T^n_star mu for some skew product transformations with expansive fibers. All results are presented in terms of twisting and weak twisting, properties which strengthen unique ergodicity in a way analogous to how mixing and weak mixing strengthen ergodicity for measure preserving systems. In Chapter 4, we study hyperbolic automorphisms of tori. It is known that Haar measure is the unique invariant measure of maximal entropy. We make this statement effective by showing that an invariant measure having large entropy must integrate Lipschitz functions similarly to Haar measure. On the 2-torus we prove a (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Vitaly Bergelson PhD (Advisor); Alexander Leibman PhD (Committee Member); Nimish Shah PhD (Committee Member); B. Chandrasekaran PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Mathematics

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2007, Biomedical Engineering

A multi-paradigm approach integrating three novel computational paradigms: wavelet transforms, chaos theory, and artificial neural networks is developed for EEG-based epilepsy diagnosis and seizure detection. This research challenges the assumption that the EEG represents the dynamics of the entire brain as a unified system. It is postulated that the sub-bands yield more accurate information about constituent neuronal activities underlying the EEG. Consequently, certain changes in EEGs not evident in the original full-spectrum EEG may be amplified when each sub-band is analyzed separately. A novel wavelet-chaos methodology is presented for analysis of EEGs and delta, theta, alpha, beta, and gamma sub-bands of EEGs for detection of seizure and epilepsy. The methodology is applied to three different groups of EEGs: healthy subjects, epileptic subjects during a seizure-free interval (interictal), and epileptic subjects during a seizure (ictal). Two potential markers of abnormality quantifying the non-linear chaotic EEG dynamics are discovered: the correlation dimension and largest Lyapunov exponent. A novel wavelet-chaos-neural network methodology is developed for EEG classification. Along with the aforementioned two parameters, the standard deviation (quantifying the signal variance) is employed for EEG representation. It was discovered that a particular mixed-band feature space consisting of nine parameters and LMBPNN result in the highest classification accuracy (96.7%). To increase the robustness of classification, a novel principal component analysis-enhanced cosine radial basis function neural network classifier is developed. The rearrangement of the input space along the principal components of the data improves the classification accuracy of the cosine radial basis function neural network employed in the second stage significantly. The new classifier is as accurate as LMBPNN and is twice as robust. Next, biologically realistic artificial neural networks are dev (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Hojjat Adeli (Advisor) Subjects:

Master of Science in Mathematics, Youngstown State University, 2012, Department of Mathematics and Statistics

Throughout the ages, mathematics has been evolving and creating new branches. In the middle to late twentieth century, a new branch formed: chaos. Chaos is the study of dynamical systems that vary greatly with respect to initial conditions. The slightest change in an initial condition, a seemingly unnoticeable change, can yield a drastically different result if the system is chaotic. Hence the common term relating to chaos theory, "the butterfly effect". Something as minute as the flap of a butterfly's wings could spawn a natural disaster half-way across the world. This thesis provides an insight to chaos from both a pure and an applied mathematician's point of view.

Committee: Eric Wingler PhD (Advisor); Zbigniew Piotrowski PhD (Committee Member); Jamal Tartir PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Applied Mathematics; Mathematics