612 research outputs found
The role of calcium and actions of calcium antagonists in human colonic smooth muscle
No full textMacroscopically normal human colon was obtained from patients undergoing colonic resection. In muscle strips suspended under tension, KCl (20-120mM) induced biphasic activity, with peak phasic followed by sustained tonic components. Contracture was abolished in Ca2+-free/EGTA Krebs solution. Nitrendipine, verapamil and diltiazem (10-10-10-6M) caused concentration-dependent inhibition, with no significant discrimination between phasic and tonic KCl responses. Calmodulin antagonists, TMB8 and W7 (10-5-10-3M), also non-selectively suppressed KCl contracture. ACh rapidly stimulated human colonic muscle, inducing recurrent contraction/relaxation spiking over a tonic contraction. Ca2+ antagonists (5x10-6-10-5M) selectively abolished spike activity without reducing sustained tone. BAY K 8644 (10-8-10-6M) caused slow-developing contraction/relaxation spiking, but the effect was abolished at > 5 x 10-6M. Nitrendipine, verapamil and diltiazem (10-7-10-5M) inhibited BAY K 8644 contracture, indicating closely-linked drug receptor sites. [3H]-nitrendipine binding to human colonic membrane fractions was saturable, reversible, and of high affinity. Scatchard analysis of saturation studies gave an average Kd ofg 0.98nM, and Bmax of 161.5fmoles/mg protein, assuming a single dihydropyridine binding site. [3H]-nitrendipine binding, with Ki values of 1.82 x 10-13, 8.59 x 10-13 and 1.40 x 10-8M, respectively. Verapamil showed incomplete displacement and diltiazem caused specific binding enhancement, suggesting allosteric receptor interaction. 45Ca efflux was studied in 20mg muscle pieces, preloaded in 45Ca-Krebs solution (10μCi/ml). Perfusion with non-isotopic buffer (1.0ml/min) resulted in biphasic efflux, with fast extracellular Ca^2+ washout followed by slower removal of intracellular Ca^2+ stores. 80mM KCl stimulated slow ^45Ca efflux, with the response abolished in Ca^2+ free/EGTA or 20mMLa^3+ Krebs solution. Pretreatment with 10^-6M nitrendipine also inhibited KCl-stimulated efflux. Similarly ^45Ca influx, by the lanthanum method, could be stimulated by 60mM KCl and was significantly inhibited by 10^-6M nitrendipine (p < 0.05). Functionally intact, viable smooth muscle cells were successfully isolated from human colonic muscularis by collagenase (1.5mg/ml), hyaluronidase (0.75mg/ml) digestion. Muscle cell yield averaged 1.97 x 10^-5 cells/g wet weight tissue (viability, > 95% purity, 63%). Preliminary measurement of intracellular calcium transients was achieved in Fura-2 loaded, isolated muscle cells, confirming their functional integrity. It is concluded that activator calcium mobilisation, from both extracellular and intracellular sources, is central to the contractile response of human colonic muscle. The contribution of each depends upon the stimulant and phase of mechanical activity studied. Extracellular calcium influx is predominantly via voltage-dependent calcium channels.</p
The light of the eye : doctrine, piety and reform in the works of Thomas Sherlock, Hannah More and Jane Austen
No full textBibliography: leaves 376-401.This thesis investigates the ways in which three eighteenth-century writers, Bishop Thomas Sherlock, Hannah More and Jane Austen embody orthodox Anglican doctrine according to their individual perceptions of the enlightening properties of Protestant Christianity. After situating them in their respective gender, literary and ecclesiastical contexts, I examine some of their key doctrines and analyse excerpts from their works. My selection of passages from Sherlock's works is fairly comprehensive, but in the case of More and Austen, where there is already a formidable body of literary criticism, it is more selective. Thus, I focus on doctrine in More's tracts, Strictures on the System of Female Education, An Essay on St Paul and most especially Coelebs in Search of a Wife and in the case of Austen, on her prayers and select passages from Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park. I conclude that, although diverse in their particular kind of Anglicanism (High, Evangelical and Median) and in their choice of genre, transparency or obscurity (anonymity and pseudonymity) and the various narratological strategies some of them invoke to circumvent certain taboos, Sherlock, More and Austen champion the same central orthodox doctrines, defend them against current alternatives to orthodoxy such as Latitudinarianism, Deism and various forms of Freethinking, and promote similar moral and ecclesiastical reforms. However, indirectly (through female characters who resist male representation or control) the women writers subject their ostensibly authorially-endorsed male narrators/characters to scrutiny and sometimes (when the males objectify the women) subversion
Sarah Fielding: Satire and Subversion in the Eighteenth-Century Novel
No full textThis study of Sarah Fielding (1710―68) is an original contribution to Fielding scholarship that has a dual purpose: to support those who are striving to re-introduce her to the modern literary landscape in an effort to restore her eighteenth-century literary standing, and to firmly establish Fielding as an early feminist writer. It is argued here that throughout her oeuvre Fielding challenged prevailing traditions that denied women a choice, particularly in education, employment and marriage. These themes are also considered in the political treatises of Mary Astell (1666―1731) and Mary Wollstonecraft (1759―97), who are now widely recognised as feminist writers.
It is further argued that Fielding’s subversion in fiction of the English patriarchal system is underscored by her unorthodox performance in the literary arena. This is fully explored alongside her use of sentimentalism as a literary tool with which she challenges her seemingly inhumane society. Fielding’s interest in ‘the Labyrinths of the Mind’ (in modern terms, human psychology) will also be addressed as will her placement in the history of feminism and her placement in the sentimental novel tradition. Fielding’s performance as a literary critic will be compared with the few female authors who, like her, dared to publish literary criticism during her writing career. Accordingly, extracts from Fielding’s novels and her two critical pamphlets will be thoroughly examined.
An updated biography of Fielding that is also included here will provide evidence for a further claim, that her fiction is autobiographical in part. A comprehensive account of Fielding’s performance as a literary critic forms the final chapter of this work. It is the first full-length examination of her contribution to the genre and includes an appraisal of her recently unearthed critical pamphlet entitled A Comparison Between the Horace of Corneille and The Roman Father of Mr. Whitehead (1750) that is yet to be formerly attributed to her. Ultimately this study of Fielding will go far beyond what has previously been written about this remarkable eighteenth-century author, particularly regarding her feminist activity
Multi-configuration model tuning for precision opto-mechanical systems
No full textThesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2004.Includes bibliographical references (p. 141-146).This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.It is important for the design of future space-based observatories that simulation models physically represent the designed system and are able to track along configuration changes. This thesis outlines a three-step procedure for model tuning of complex opto-mechanical systems in the presence of measured experimental data. It is the hypothesis of this thesis that this procedure will produce a model that effectively tracks along configuration changes. The first step, engineering insight, applies model heuristics to the simulation model in an effort to produce a simulation model that includes all physical effects in the experiment. The next step, model updating, is an automated procedure whereby an optimization problem is formed in order to set uncertain model parameters. The final step is model tracking across configurations. Configuration changes include, but are not limited to, changes in mass, input/output locations, changes in geometric properties and relative placements. A new metric is provided which helps to gauge the level of experimental/model mismatch in the new configuration (using the updated model) by using the objective function from the optimization in Step 2. Using this metric, one can determine how the model changes with respect to specific configuration changes. Finally, this three-step tuning procedure is compared against traditional model tuning on a testbed at the MIT Space Systems Lab (SSL) in order to gauge its usefulness. The traditional model tuning will be performed by a colleague in the SSL who will use such methods as trial-and-error parameter updating to match the simulation model to the experimental data.(cont.) Using the multi-configuration metric presented in this thesis, it is shown that the model produced using the three step method does track configurations better than the model produced using traditional model tuning.by Deborah Jane Howell.S.M
Spatial Nyquist fidelity method for structural models of opto-mechanical systems
No full textThesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2007.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Includes bibliographical references (p. 189-196).As technology employed in complex multidisciplinary systems such as high performance telescope systems becomes ever more sophisticated, simulation is becoming more important during the initial design phases. The method of building these simulation models is often based on engineering experience with older, potentially dissimilar systems. A method is needed to measure the fidelity of simulation models so early design decisions are made based on appropriate modeling techniques. Previously, fidelity was a qualitative concept used to indicate a model's validity or accuracy. Here it is defined as the ability of a model to accurately predict chosen output figures of merit. In this thesis, a quantitative measure of fidelity, termed the Nyquist fidelity metric, is defined for commonly used structural model components. It expresses the ability of a finite element model to accurately predict structural eigenvalues based on the mesh size required by the spatial Nyquist criterion. The Nyquist fidelity method is developed which uses the fidelity metric to both assess the fidelity of existing complex models and to synthesize new multi-component models starting from architectural considerations such as geometric and material properties of the system. This method also estimates the error bound on the output figures of merit based on the fidelity levels and sensitivity analysis. The Nyquist fidelity method is applied to simple sample problems to first demonstrate the methodology and it is then applied to complex telescope models to show the accuracy and computational benefits of this method compared to current methods such as model reduction. The three high performance telescope case studies are the Modular Optical Space Telescope (MOST), the Thirty Meter Telescope, and the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy.(cont.) It is shown in the MOST example that the Nyquist fidelity method provides a 40% improvement in computational time while assuring less than 5% modal frequency error, and less than 2.2% error in the output figure of merit.by Deborah Jane Howell.Ph.D
Freud's Lost Lecture
No full textFreud’s Lost Lecture is a six minute film Directed and created by Jane Thorburn in collaboration with the twice Man Booker shortlisted author Deborah Levy. The film was created in three acts for screening as separate parts on Instagram. The six minute version is intended for cinema and festival screenings.
Levy imagines a lost lecture written by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. It investigates an hysterical woman dancing through time, snow leopards lapping milk in the kitchen of Freud’s last house, and a journey under the ground on a ghost train.
The images, created by Thorburn, place the dancing woman in natural and man-made scenarios. Creatures are reconstructed from their basic elements in the way you might recognise them in dreams.
The juxtaposition of images and spoken word examines and interrogates the ways in which the relationship between the performative elements of female hysteria and associated body movements have been interpreted by Freudian Theory, making visual reference to the theatrical aspects of lectures.
Removing the human intention behind hysterical movement and replacing it with the frenetic repetitive dance of a mechanical ballerina works both to highlight and to question the performative and theatrical aspects of the lecture format and also the patients’ behaviour.
Awarded: Best Adaptation of Freudian Theory. Sigmund Freud Film Festival May 2019
Finalist: Oaxaca Film Festival Mexico 2019.
Exhibited with presentation: The Freud Museum, London 2019
Official Selection: The European Psychoanalytic Film Festival 201
Jews and gender in British literature 1815-1865.
No full textPhDThis thesis examines the variety of relationships between Jews and gender in early
to mid-nineteenth century British literature, focussing particularly on representations
of and by Jewish women. It reconstructs the social, political and literary context in
which writers produced images and narratives about Jews, and considers to what
extent stereotypes were reproduced, appropriated, or challenged. In particular it
examines the ways in which questions of gender were linked to ideas about religious
or racial difference in the Victorian period.
The study situates literary representations of Jews within the context of
contemporary debates about the participation of the Jews in the life of the modern
state. It also investigates the ways in which these political debates were gendered,
looking in particular at the relationship between the cultural construction of
femininity and English national identity.
It first considers Victorian culture's obsession with Rebecca, the Jewess created in
Walter Scott's influential novel Ivanhoe (1819). It examines Rebecca's refusal to
convert to Christianity in the context of Scott's discussion of racial separatism and
modern national unity.
Evangelical writers like Annie Webb, Amelia Bristow and Mrs Brendlah were
prolific literary producers, and preoccupied with converting Jewish women.
Particularly during the 18'40s and 1850s, evangelical writing provided an important
forum for the construction and consolidation of women's national identity.
Grace Aguilar's writing was an attempt to understand Jewish identity within the
terms of Victorian domestic ideology. In contrast, Celia and Marion Moss, in their
historical romances, offered narratives of female heroism and national liberation,
drawing on the contemporary debate about slavery.
Benjamin Disraeli's construction of a "tough version of Jewish identity was a
response both to the contemporary stereotype of the feminised Jew and to the debate
about Jewish emancipation. It also drew on the virile ideology of the Young England
movement of the 1840s
Becoming Jane in screen adaptations of Austen's fiction
No full textThis chapter considers how Austen's heroines have been transformed into versions of the author is film and television adaptations
Chinese mothers - Western daughters? : cross-cultural representations of mother-daughter relationships in contemporary Chinese and Western women's writing
No full textThis study looks at women's prose narrative representing four major
Chinese communities during the last 30 years, and focuses on the depiction of
mother-daughter relationships among personae within the narrative texts. The
thesis seeks to suggest that mother-daughter relationships within the texts are a
reflection of how a text responds to its mother culture in the course of development.
Narrative prose ranging from self-professed autobiographies to the fictional,
written by Chinese women from American-Chinese communities, Hong Kong,
Taiwan and Mainland China, are examined in a comparative approach within an
ethnical framework. The concept of a national literature is discussed with regard to
different fonns of Chinese-ness.
It is revealed, in the course of this examination, that each group of Chinese
women's writing examined here demonstrates an acute awareness of a link with an
original mother culture, the Chinese orientation. However, recent events both
inside and outside China have inevitably shaped cultural development in these
communities, resulting in splits and diversifications in the individual cultural
consciousness.
Approached from this perspective, the Chinese mother culture gains a new
vitality by virtue of shedding the burden of a long history. Focusing on the
intertextual activities of regional writings, it is shown that represented Chinese-ness
is no longer an unchanged and unchanging phenomenon, but is redefined each
moment through the locus of interactions among independent hybrid communities
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