Thesiss

This dissertation explores the ideational underpinnings of the rise of the west through a comparison of ancient Greek geometry, medieval Arabic algebra, and early modern European calculus. Blending insights from Thomas Kuhn, Michel Foucault, and William H. Sewell, I assert that …

The inverse problem of the calculus of variations is examined from an operator-theoretic point of view instead of as an integration problem. These operators give a convenient, presentation of generalizations to higher order Lagrangians. Original material on this subject will be …

Aridification leading to crop failure has recently been hypothesized to explain the collapse of the Akkadian Empire in ancient Mesopotamia (∼2300 and 2200 B.C.). Phytoliths from the dental calculus of 17 human skeletons excavated from Tell Leian in northern Syria were investigat…

This thesis concerns fractional-order (non-integer) methods for control system design. Although fractional-order calculus has a long history in mathematics and engineering, the uptake of relevant fractional-order concepts in control systems research has been relatively slow, and…