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“A Hunt for Love”: The Torre de la Parada, & Rubens’ Rape of Proserpine
Get PDFIn examining the meaning of rape in Rubens’ painting of Proserpine, I consider its erotic context through a synthesizing of sources and methods to articulate it. The nuances which contribute to such an interpretation involve various methodological considerations, ranging from a social historical consideration of seventeenth-century views of rape, to an Ovidian and classical source study to reveal sexual ideologies which permeate in Rubens’ work. The “love hunt” is a theme which I identify to clarify my erotic interpretation for his painting. This identification demonstrates the ways in which hunting or chasing is made palatable in Rubens’ work through the dynamic of his female and male mythological subjects. It is in the codification of Rubens’ victims that I identify them as intentionally eroticized
The Museum’s Politics of Space and Colonial Framing of Indigenous Art The Claire and Marc Bourgie Pavilion’s Inuit Art Exhibition
Get PDFThis thesis examines museums’ spatial politics in the representation of Indigenous art history questioning the affects and effects of architecture on visitors’ experience and interpretation of museum narratives. The body of research my analysis draws from focuses primarily on theories of space and spatial organization, architecture, and design, as well as histories of settler colonialism and the racialization of bodies and knowledge through modes of rationalization. Looking carefully at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Claire and Marc Bourgie Pavilion, I attend to the ways in which the collection of Inuit art housed on the fourth-floor galleria is made inconsequential and how the space enacts a disservice to the artworks and artists presented, supporting national colonial imaginaries anchored in settler colonialism. My inquiry is first and foremost informed by a decolonial theoretical framework. This thesis attempts at decolonizing my own knowledge and asking how and if the Inuit art collection on the last floor of the Claire and Marc Bourgie pavilion allows for decolonizing knowledge. I contend that experiences of this space speak to bigger and more complex issues of representation and decolonization in cultural institutions and respond to larger discourses critical of institutional and socio-political realities. Accordingly, I recognize the dual relationship between museum institutions—their physical spaces and the objects displayed—and the visitors, along with the active role of each in making sense of what is being presented, constructing, and organizing knowledge. I question the information and insights offered by the materials and objects and the relationships they facilitate. In sum, I ask: what knowledge is made available? How does this knowledge relate to the lived realities and the histories of the cultures put on display
Gödel's Mathematical Intuition and Platonism
Get PDFThis paper has two objectives. The first is to present an interpretation of Gödel's concept of mathematical intuition and defend it against other interpretations like Charles Parsons'. The second objective is to show the necessity of realism for Gödel's mathematical intuition. The first section seeks to show what mathematical intuition is and how it works, focusing on Gödel's works and unpublished texts. Consequently, from this section, I will show that, for Gödel, the concept of mathematical intuition emerges and develops parallel to his platonistic ontological commitment. Gödel's Platonism and mathematical intuition involve not only an ontological dimension but also an epistemological dimension. In the second section, I will discuss Parsons' 1995 paper "Platonism and mathematical intuition in Kurt Gödel's thought", in which he argues for a separation between mathematical intuition and Gödel's Platonism. What I will show is that this separation is not possible in Gödel since according to the recent publications of his philosophical notebooks and works prior to 1964, mathematical intuition was already implicit and, contrary to what Parsons argues, it is not something that arises before and independently of Gödel's realism
Family Businesses and Debt Maturity Structure: Focusing on Family Involvement in Governance to Explain Heterogeneity
Get PDFUnderstanding family firms’ debt maturity structure is important because it plays a key role in making strategic decisions and mitigating agency conflicts. This study investigates the relationship between family involvement in governance and debt maturity structure in family firms by drawing on governance literature and insights from the socioemotional wealth perspective. Based on a sample of non-financial Italian public family firms, comprising 383 firm-year observations, we find differences in the proportion of long-term debt depending on variations in components of family involvement in governance. In particular, later-generation involvement on the board is associated with a lower proportion of long-term debt. Furthermore, family ownership positively moderates this relationship such that the proportion of long-term debt is higher with high family ownership. This study contributes to literature by adding further nuance to our understanding of the heterogeneity of family firms, by considering the relationship between variations in family involvement in governance and debt structure. Our study has practical implications that may inform investors about factors related to family involvement in governance, which are likely to influence debt maturity structure, and thus long-term strategies of family firms
A Systematic Review for Netizens’ Response to the Truth Manipulation on Social Media
Get PDFThe manipulated or manufactured truth on social media platforms spreads false information to influence netizens’ cognition, often resulting in fabricated social and political narratives. This study systematically reviews the literature on truth manipulation and its impact on the cognition of social media users. The primary focus is on disinformation, misinformation, fake news, and propaganda. The study appraises 162 peer-reviewed publications indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection database using the systematic review method. The data was put through a bibliometric analysis to unpack the evolutionary nuances of netizens’ cognitive response to manufactured truth, informativity, and manipulation on social media. The study highlights emerging trends and issues from truth manipulation on social media. The bibliometric analysis reveals since 2017, there has been an increase in the trend of scholarly work about truth manipulation on social media and its effects on the cognition of netizens. The USA seems to be the most prominent node to contribute to the study of truth manipulation. The content analysis shows multiple aspects causing truth manipulation. This study also seeks ways and methods to prevent and counter truth manipulation on social media. It looks at the possibilities of altering netizens’ cognitive abilities by improving their critical social media literacies through fact-checking. The study results show that knowledge gaps persist in truth manipulation on social media and the cognitional aspects in response to fabricated narratives. We emphasize the importance of further investigations in this domain
Ask Brian McFee #2: Working With Multitrack Audio Collections
Get PDFAsk Brian McFee is a new regular column in which letters sent by members across the SpokenWeb network concerning the digital analysis of sound are answered by our resident computational audio expert, Brian McFee (NYU). In this column, Brian explores how to harness technology in order to reassemble a multitrack audio collection
Somatosensory and Attachment-Based Group Art Therapy for Autistic Adults: Found Objects Interventions
Get PDFAutistic adults may face challenges impacting their quality of life, especially if their emotional needs, social cognition, communication, and attachment difficulties are not well supported (American Psychiatric Association, 2022; Durrani, 2019; Stallings, 2022). Adults diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may experience ASD-related anxieties, including those with sensory integration dysfunction (SID), may become hypo or hypersensitive to sensory information, and withdraw from social or environmental interactions as a coping mechanism (Durrani, 2019, 2020; Lindgren & Doobay, 2011). Autistic individuals can benefit from art therapy interventions to help with social interaction, attachment, and regulation difficulties. The use of found objects in art therapy can support these individuals to create art that is based on their responses to their environments. This may increase client engagement, support attachment formation between client and therapist, foster emotional identification, meaning-making, and personal symbolism (Brooker, 2010; Hinz, 2020). Group art therapy can provide autistic adults with a safe, creative space to work towards self-regulation, creative expression, and social connection (Armstrong, 2013; Gonzalez-Dolginko, 2020; Suchostawski, 2018). This research paper will explore how a group art therapy program for autistic adults, with ASD-related anxiety and sensory information processing challenges, can be designed using found objects interventions. The research paper will use social justice, somatosensory and attachment perspectives. A 16-week group art therapy intervention program is developed using Fraser and Galinsky’s intervention research model (2010). The research paper includes a literature review and addresses the strengths, limitations and implications of the findings and suggests directions for future research
A High-Throughput and Genomics-Based Approach to Combat Antimicrobial Resistance
Get PDFAntimicrobial resistance (AMR) is becoming an increasingly large threat to global health and economics. In 2019, there were approximately 1.27 million deaths directly attributable to bacterial AMR and 4.95 million deaths associated with bacterial AMR. These numbers are expected to increase to 10 million by the year 2050. The use of Adjuvant therapeutics has been proposed as a strategy to mitigate antimicrobial resistance. Adjuvants can help resensitize resistant bacteria to clinically-relevant antibiotics, while also prolonging resistance from occurring.
Here I present two high-throughput screens: one that identifies robust adjuvant compounds that target resistant bacteria, and one that repurposes drug-like compounds for antimicrobial use against Gram-negative bacteria. From these screens, one lead adjuvant candidate and four repurposed drug-like antimicrobials were taken forward for a mix of analog generation studies, mechanistic studies, resistance evolution studies and genomic analysis.
This work will help play a role in bringing novel therapies to the clinic and prolong the evolution of resistance from occurring
New Signal Priority Strategies to Improve Public Transit Operations
Get PDFRapid urbanization is causing severe congestion on road transport networks around the world. Improving service and attracting more travellers could be part of the solution. In urban areas, improving public transportation efficiency and reliability can reduce traffic congestion and improve transportation system performance. By facilitating public buses' movement through traffic signal-controlled intersections, a Transit Signal Priority (TSP) strategy can contribute to the reduction of queuing time at intersections. In the last decade, studies have focused on TSP systems to help public transportation organizations attract more travellers. However, the traditional TSP also has a significant downside; it is detrimental to non-prioritized movements and other transport modes.
This research proposes new TSP strategies that account for the number of passengers on board as well as the real-time adherence of buses to their present schedules. Two methods have been proposed. First, buses are prioritized based on their load and their adherence to their schedules, while in the second method, the person delay at an intersection is optimized. The optimization approach in the first method uses a specific priority for public transit, while additional parameters are considered in the second method, like residual queue and arrival rate at the intersection. One of this research's main contributions is providing insight into the benefits of these new TSP methods along a corridor and on an isolated signalized intersection. The proposed methods need real-time information on transit operations, traffic signals status and vehicular flows. The lack of readily available infrastructure to provide all these data is compensated by using a traffic simulator, VISSIM, for an isolated intersection and an arterial corridor. The study area simulation results indicated that the new TSP methods performed better than the conventional TSP. For the investigated study area, it was shown that the second method performed better in an isolated signalized intersection, while the first method reduced traffic and environmental indices when used for an arterial corridor.
Future research can investigate the effects of the proposed methodology on the urban network by using macrosimulation to see the effects of the proposed TSP on the network. Also, considering conflicting TSP requests in these methodologies could be another area for further research
"Relentless Geography": Yamashita, DeLillo, and the Space of Globalization
Get PDFThroughout the 1990s, the phenomenon of globalization emerged as a dominant framework for assessing the post-Cold War order of international relations. Amidst the proliferation of globalization discourse, a group of prominent political and economic commentators made the case that advancements in communication and transportation technology had effectively brought about the “end of geography.” In this thesis, I analyze how two American novels–Karen Tei Yamashita’s Tropic of Orange (1997) and Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis (2003)–take up, and ultimately reject, these claims about the “end of geography.” Beginning with Tropic of Orange, I argue that Yamashita’s rendering of the Tropic of Cancer latitudinal line as a mobile and materialized thread serves to underscore the novel’s structure as a global network and to assert that the lines of connection linking the globalized world are not just virtual but material. Turning to Cosmopolis, I focus on the novel’s protagonist, a twenty-eight-year-old multi-billionaire currency trader named Eric Michael Packer who possesses a desire to become unmoored from the realities of geography. As I argue, DeLillo stages Packer’s failed bodily transcendence in order to reject the notion that digital finance has presently, or will someday, become untethered from physical reality. Concluding with a brief analysis of DeLillo’s Falling Man (2007)¬¬–his first novel written following the events of 9/11¬–I contend that the depiction of space in this novel is indicative of a broader discursive shift away from triumphalist claims about globalization which occurred after the attacks on that date and the ensuing “War on Terror.” Ultimately, I demonstrate that these three novels offer nuanced and illuminating accounts of the hyperbolic–and indeed problematic–claims made by proponents of the “end of geography” discourse