Search

This work comprises a translation and study of the Devīpurāṇa, an understudied Śākta Purāṇa heretofore untranslated into English. Literary analyses of the narrative portions of the text demonstrate the novel negotiations of gender, power, and authority prompted by the integration of a burgeoning feminine divine within a Brahmanical religious frame. The introductory chapter introduces the text and situates it within its historical context of early medieval Bengal, while chapter one orients the study of the Devīpurāṇa within broader trends of Śākta and Upa/Purāṇa scholarship. Chapter two employs an intratextual approach to reveal a milieu which simultaneously exalts the Goddess in her various manifestations but regulates those feminine forces through Brahmanical male oversight; the intertextual analysis of chapter three emphasizes this distinct vision of the Goddess’s tenuous position in the Devīpurāṇa in comparison with her unequivocal supremacy as posited by other Śākta Purāṇas. The fourth chapter considers other liminal figures in the text, such as Asuras and Vināyaka, to demonstrate how elements of the cultural fringe are ushered into the orthodox sphere in a manner consonant with the incorporation of the feminine divine. Lastly, chapter five, which focuses on the Tantric influences of the text, contends that the Devīpurāṇa enjoins the practitioner to praise the supremacy of the Goddess, to delight in her ferocious power, and through esoteric means to direct her feminine energies along fruitful spiritual pathways. The second part of the dissertation offers a translation of more than one-third of the Devīpurāṇa, with attention to the text’s four primary narrative arcs.

We study the magnetic structure of narrow graphene ribbons with patterned edges. Neglecting interactions, a broad class of edge terminations support zero-energy states localized at the edges of the ribbon. For the simplest (zigzag) ribbon supporting these edge states, electron-electron interactions have been shown to induce ferromagnetic ordering along the edges of the ribbon. We generalize this argument for such a magnetic edge state to carbon ribbons with more complex chiral edge terminations.

Since the early 2000s, within the fields of Design and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) an emerging body of unconventional design work has exemplified and articulated alternative and oppositional functions of design. Examples of such functions include provocatively speculating about alternative futures (speculation), questioning the status quo (critique), and debating political issues (agonism). Prominent examples of alternative and oppositional design have originated within HCI. Others have been heavily discussed, adapted, and critiqued within HCI. Alternative and oppositional designs have been presented under various names: critical design, design fiction, adversarial design, reflective design, ludic design, speculative design… At this moment the list continues to grow while examples of such work proliferate. This work collectively demonstrates the potential for design to engage concerns and goals that pivot around themes of generating radical alternatives and creating productive political, cultural, and social opposition. This thesis argues that there is a body of unconventional design work that becomes cohesive and legible when held together by themes of oppositionality and alternatives, and operating throughout these designs is a technique which I term design resistance. This thesis presents two primary contributions. The first contribution is to isolate and elaborate resistance as a design technique at work across a range of alternative and oppositional designs. I articulate how design resistance works by analyzing a series of design exemplars drawn from HCI and adjacent areas of Design. The second contribution is to extend and refine the overarching technique of design resistance through two design case studies. These design case studies serve the dual function of offering additional insight into design resistance grounded in my own design practice while concretely demonstrating new knowledge relevant to specific domains and concerns within HCI, including sustainable energy consumption and critiques of digital consumer technologies. Together these contributions provide new knowledge for (1) understanding the rise of alternative and oppositional designs, the concerns they are working to engage, and the research gaps they are working to fill, and (2) how to practice alternative and oppositional forms of design using techniques of design resistance.

This study describes the application of quality by design (QbD) principles to the development and implementation of a major manufacturing process improvement for a commercially distributed therapeutic protein produced in Chinese hamster ovary cell culture. The intent of this article is to focus on QbD concepts, and provide guidance and understanding on how the various components combine together to deliver a robust process in keeping with the principles of QbD. A fed-batch production culture and a virus inactivation step are described as representative examples of upstream and downstream unit operations that were characterized. A systematic approach incorporating QbD principles was applied to both unit operations, involving risk assessment of potential process failure points, small-scale model qualification, design and execution of experiments, definition of operating parameter ranges and process validation acceptance criteria followed by manufacturing-scale implementation and process validation. Statistical experimental designs were applied to the execution of process characterization studies evaluating the impact of operating parameters on product quality attributes and process performance parameters. Data from process characterization experiments were used to define the proven acceptable range and classification of operating parameters for each unit operation. Analysis of variance and Monte Carlo simulation methods were used to assess the appropriateness of process design spaces. Successful implementation and validation of the process in the manufacturing facility and the subsequent manufacture of hundreds of batches of this therapeutic protein verifies the approaches taken as a suitable model for the development, scale-up and operation of any biopharmaceutical manufacturing process.