After reading Ted's brilliant analysis, suggesting a "key" that might help decode the pdf, I thought, as I had suggested to Maura, why not ask the author for the pdf file in another format? So I decided to check for A. Bagheri on Google, and bingo , A. Bagheri has a homepage somewhere in Norway, where his ( her?) thesis is published in .pdf AND HTML format!!! Maura, here you are: fx (if the energy that was spend answering your query on the SuSe list could be transmutated into oil, one could have heated the whole of Belgium for a full 9 weeks ....) http://folk.uio.no/bagheri/thesis/node1.html#SECTION00100000000000000000 Contents * Contents * Introduction * Statistical Models o Theory o Extraction of Level Density and $\gamma$-ray Strength Function * Methods o Experimental Setup o Spectra Handling + Particle Identification + Coincidence Matrix + Unfolding $\gamma$-Ray Spectra # The Response Function # The Folding Iteration Method # The Compton Subtraction Method + Extraction of First Generation $\gamma$ Spectra * Experimental Results o Level Density o Radiative Strength Function o Thermodynamic Properties * Summary and Conclusion * Nuclear Level Density o The Fermi Gas Model o The Nuclear Shell Model o Some Empirical Level Density Formulas * Transitions between States o Weisskopf estimates o Collective contribution to the transition * Giant Electric Dipole Resonance * Excitation Energy and it's Dependency of Spin and Pairing * Useful Information o The Reaction o Software Structure o Nuclear Deformation and Shape * References * References Preface Nuclear physics have been one of the most fascinating branches in science, which have always been taken my attention and I would place at the top of my ``list of interests''. It concerns fundamental questions of nature and have been the main motivating element for me to take this interesting work. This work has also given me the opportunity to get some view about the most basic and complicated cornerstone of the nature (universe), namely the nucleus. The present work is the result of an experiment on dysprosium metallic foil target with mass number 161. The experiment was performed at the Oslo Cyclotron Laboratory at the University of Oslo in the Autumn 1998 and the data analyzing started at Autumn 2001. The whole work took me about two years. I myself participated in two other experiment, experiment on 94 Mo at June 2002 and 119 Sn at February 2003. The introduction and motivation of the work is presented in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 describes the applied statistical model for extraction of the level density and $\gamma-$ray strength function from the primary $\gamma-$rays in the continuum region. Chapter 3 explains the method and tools used to carry out the experiment and analyzing the data. A detailed discussion on the results of the experiment and comparison with the neighboring isotopes is covered in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 gives a summary and conclusions. I would like to thank my supervisor Magne Guttormsen for his guidance, patience and for many inspiring discussions and mailing. Finally, I would like to thank my family for their support.