6 research outputs found
ENGINEERING A MICROFLUIDIC DEVICE FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF ATMOSPHERIC ICE NUCLEATION
No full textAtmospheric ice-nucleating particles (INPs) promote the formation of ice particles in clouds. They usually modulate the properties of clouds, precipitation, and climate. The effect of INPs is predominant in low Arctic mixed-phase clouds. However, ambient ice nucleation in clouds is a complex process encompassing multiple freezing mechanisms. Limited knowledge about nature and the role of high-latitude INPs in the climate system is available. To fill the knowledge gap, this thesis project developed the West Texas A&M University Microfluidic Static Droplet Array (WT-MFSDA) platform for studying atmospheric ice nucleation, specifically immersion freezing. WT-MFSDA combines a microfluidic device containing interconnected droplet parking traps, a unique method of hand pipetting to create an array of INP-laden nanoliter-sized droplets, and a commercialized cooling unit for visualization and characterization of freezing events of hundreds of individual droplets. Each droplet is geometrically separated from each other and enveloped with a thin film of mineral oil. This spatial arrangement increases the reliability and reproducibility of the measurement by eliminating the artifacts due to surface contact, mass transfer, and/or evaporation. This platform is useful to simulate and investigate the immersion freezing of water and/or any INP-involved suspension down to the homogenous freezing temperature (below -35 °C) at a wide range of cooling rates from 0.01 to 30 ℃ per minute, which corresponds to atmospherically relevant cloud updraft velocities. A systematic uncertainty in terms of temperature is ± 0.3 °C. The device performance is verified with the known composition of bulk powder INP surrogates, such as illite NX, Snomax®, and microcrystalline cellulose. The results from nL-freezing assays of WT-MFSDA were compared and verified to/against the results of published immersion freezing results. The WT-MFSDA immersion freezing platform shows the potential as an affordable and handy tool for studying ice nucleation in clouds
Mapping transference : problems of African literature and translation from French into English
No full textAlthough a number of African literary works have been
translated from French into English since the middle of this
century, research and debate on their translation has remained
scanty, fragmentary, and scattered in diverse learned journals
and other short publications. This thesis seeks to broaden the
scope of research by mapping out aspects of transference in
translation in terms of analysis and transfer strategies that
have been, or could be, used. A selection of major translated
works have been compared with their originals, to give textual
examples indicative of transfer strategies.
Current issues in African literature as well as typical
features of the literature in French and English have been
explored in order to examine differences between them and English
and French literatures. The implications of these differences (at
the levels of content, cultural setting, peculiar use of English
and French, and the target audience) for translation are
considered, and a brief historical survey of the translation of
African literature provides insights into how translators have
approached, and continue to approach, literary texts as well as
cope with their target readership. Furthermore, dominant trends
in literary translation studies (mainly in the West) are explored
to determine if, and in what ways, they relate to translation
studies in Africa.
The analysis of transfer strategies focuses on the
distinctive features of francophone African literary texts,
drawing on relevant Western literary translation theories and
models, on African literary theory and criticism, as well as on
other disciplines likely contribute to an informed understanding
of the texts. Finally, a case study applies the analysis to a
text which is translated, and transfer strategies discussed
The virtual image : Brazilian literature in English translation
No full textThe
aim of this thesis is to
examine
how the virtual
image
of Brazil
and
its literature is
constructed
in the Anglo-American world. To this
end, a survey of
Brazilian literary
works
in English translation was
carried out.
Having
gathered this data, it became
possible to establish
correlations
between the historical
moments when such translations
were made, when their number
increased,
and the events occurring at
those times in the international
panorama, as well as to look into the
role of sponsors, publishers and translators in the
selection and
production of such translations.
The data
also allowed a profile of
Brazilian literary
works
in
English translation to be drawn. It became
possible to suggest that
such works
fall into four
main categories:
`authorial
works',
'topical
works',
`ambassadorial
works'
and `consumer-oriented
works'.
In
order
to look
more closely
into how the translation process
has helped to
shape
the
virtual
image
of Brazilian literary
works
in
the Anglo-American world, an analysis of a sample of
translations
of
such works was made. Included in this
sample were
the translations
of works
by Machado de Asis, by Indianist
and
Regionalist
wirters,
culminating
in
an examination of translations of
GuimarAes Rosa's
works.
Having looked
at these aspects of
the translation
process, what
remained
to be done
was to investigate
to what extent
Brazilian
literary
works
in English translation
are read
by the English-
speaking public.
To this
end, a survey of availability and
library
readership was undertaken. Finally,
a reading experiment was carried
out
in
which native speakers of
English
were asked to read the short
story
'A terceira
margem
do
rio',
by GuimarAes Rosa.
The
conclusion attempts to pull all these threads together and
to indicate directions for further
research
Representations of migrant and nation in selected works of Rohinton Mistry and Salman Rushdie
No full textThis thesis explores the representations of, and the relationship between. the migrant and the nation in selected works of the Bombay-born novelists Rohinton Mistry and Salman Rushdie. I explore each writer's engagement with contemporary debates surrounding the material, political, social and imaginative consequences of the crisis in secularism in India during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, and consider how this engagement is informed by their
migrant positions beyond India's borders. A primary concern is the way in which Mistry's and Rushdie's representations of the nation, and of migrant and diasporic subjects, intersects with the representation of Bombay in their work.
This thesis is divided into five chapters. The first two chapters concentrate on Mistry's fiction, the remaining three on Rushdie's work. Published between 1988 and 2002, the central novels examined are situated within debates regarding the founding principles of the Indian nation, and notions of Indianness, the rise of communalism in general and Hindu nationalism in particular, and the renaming of Bombay as Mumbai. My readings foreground the necessity of a
close understanding of the historical and political transformations taking place within Bombay and India during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, but also during the 1950s and 1960s. I argue that Mistry's and Rushdie's work is informed by a deepening anxiety over these socio-political transformations, and over how reconfigurations of Indianness increasingly position minority communities, and migrant and diasporic subjects, outside of definitions of national identity.
This anxiety extends into the negotiation of their own migrant positions. My reading of the differing representations of the migrant in Mistry's and Rushdie's work engages with ideas of accountability, political responsibility, and with notions of cosmopolitanism. In doing so, I question familiar assumptions regarding the migrant condition as one of predominantly empowering political agency. I argue that, while both authors emphasise the importance of the migrant sustaining a critical engagement with India's politics, they also foreground the anxious difficulties of doing so. This difficulty informs Mistry's and Rushdie's divergent negotiation of their own position as migrant writers, and I examine how their fiction is marked by an anxiety over the adequacy of writing as a mode of political engagement with the crisis in secularism and the parochialisation of Bombay, and as a means of negotiating the politics of migrancy
A novel fluorescent "turn-on" chemosensor for nanomolar detection of Fe(III) from aqueous solution and its application in living cells imaging
No full textAn electronically active and spectral sensitive fluorescent "turn-on" chemosensor (BTP-1) based on the benzo-thiazolo-pyrimidine unit was designed and synthesized for the highly selective and sensitive detection of Fe3+ from aqueous medium. With Fe3+, the sensor BTP-1 showed a remarkable fluorescence enhancement at 554 nm (lambda(ex) = 314 nm) due to the inhibition of photo-induced electron transfer. The sensor formed a host-guest complex in 1:1 stoichiometry with the detection limit down to 0.74 nM. Further, the sensor was successfully utilized for the qualitative and quantitative intracellular detection of Fe3+ in two liver cell lines i.e., HepG2 cells (human hepatocellular liver carcinoma cell line) and HL-7701 cells (human normal liver cell line) by a confocal imaging technique. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.An electronically active and spectral sensitive fluorescent "turn-on" chemosensor (BTP-1) based on the benzo-thiazolo-pyrimidine unit was designed and synthesized for the highly selective and sensitive detection of Fe3+ from aqueous medium. With Fe3+, the sensor BTP-1 showed a remarkable fluorescence enhancement at 554 nm (lambda(ex) = 314 nm) due to the inhibition of photo-induced electron transfer. The sensor formed a host-guest complex in 1:1 stoichiometry with the detection limit down to 0.74 nM. Further, the sensor was successfully utilized for the qualitative and quantitative intracellular detection of Fe3+ in two liver cell lines i.e., HepG2 cells (human hepatocellular liver carcinoma cell line) and HL-7701 cells (human normal liver cell line) by a confocal imaging technique. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved
How well do India's social service programs serve the poor?
No full textReaching India's poor calls for greatly improved social service delivery systems, better targeting of the poor, more coordination between agencies, policies aimed at income generation, and more involvement of the poor and of nongovernmental organizations. The authors of this paper found that India's social services were used relatively little by the poor. The health and education of the poor has improved but not as much for the population as a whole. The reasons that all social service programs did so little to alleviate poverty are similar. Physical access to education and health services has improved but inequalities exist because of biases in locating facilities. The access of the poor to housing, social security, and social welfare services has been limited because these services were inadequate relative to needs and because services leak to the nonpoor. Social service policies are not comprehensive enough and the quality of services is low. Issues common to the social sector delivery systems are weak management, ineffective targeting, and inflexible service delivery systems that result in a mismatch between perceived needs and services delivered. The bureaucracy is inadequate to reach the poor. Existing capacity and resources are inadequate, particularly for education and health.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Health Economics&Finance,Poverty Assessment,Safety Nets and Transfers,Rural Poverty Reduction
