13,543 research outputs found
Richardson, Barbauld, and the construction of an early modern fan club
No full textMPhilMuch has been written about the life and long works of the eighteenth century epistolary novelist, Samuel Richardson, but the prospect of his position as the first celebrity novelist – responsible for courting his own fame as well as initiating his own fan club – has largely been ignored. The body of manuscripts housed at the National Art Library in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London provides the modern scholar with evidence of the skeletal beginnings of an early fan club. This thesis aims to show how these manuscripts were turned into a saleable commodity by the publisher and entrepreneur Richard Phillips, while under the guiding hand of another, slightly later, literary celebrity, Anna Laetitia Barbauld. In order to restore Richardson’s reputation amongst a new nineteenth century audience, Barbauld was required to construct her own idea of him as an eighteenth century celebrity author, and in doing so the insecurities of a self-professed, apparently diffident man, are revealed. Barbauld’s capacious, but heavily edited selection of letters is analyzed in this thesis, providing ample evidence that Richardson’s correspondents were more than just eager letter writers. By using Barbauld’s biography of Richardson this thesis aims to show how she manipulates the genre of life writing in her construction of him.
This thesis offers an alternative reading of how the Richardson manuscripts are viewed, redefining them as not simply a collection of letters, but as a collective entity, deliberately selected and archived as evidence of an early modern fan club, and its celebrity managing director
A scholarly catalogue raisonné: George Wilson and the engraved fan leaf design 1795-1801
No full textABSTRACT
This research thesis offers a small but comprehensive scholarly catalogue raisonné of the surviving unmounted fan leaves designed and printed by the late eighteenth-century English fan leaf engraver, George Wilson (active before 1795-after 1801). Wilson’s extant output of nineteen fan leaf engravings published in London now exist in storage within the Prints and Drawing Department of the British Museum, after the receipt of two bequests from Lady Charlotte Schreiber (1812-1895) in the late nineteenth century. The individual fan leaf designs discussed in this catalogue raisonné include a number of reprinted fan leaves from the same engraving design.
There follows a chronological catalogue listing, and discussion of, all the different fan leaves designed by Wilson, collected by Lady Schreiber and subsequently bequeathed to the British Museum. The variety of subject matter depicted on these fan leaf designs underscore the differing types of themes Wilson engaged with in his engraved production. Analysis of the three main areas of Wilson’s fan leaf design work, female ‘advisory’ fan leaves, overtly satirical, and nationalistic fan leaves, reveal that Wilson’s fan leaf imagery engaged, to a great extent, with cultural concerns about the turbulences of late eighteenth-century life in London, as well as effectively modernising aesthetic precedents and contemporary graphic design. In particular, it becomes apparent that Wilson’s fan leaves effectively engage with late eighteenth-century feminine pre-occupations of choosing the right moral path to happiness, moderation in daily life, marriage and bearing children, in addition to illustrating the perceived multitude of follies translated from contemporary literary and pictorial sources. One of the predominant concerns in his catalogue of work is revealed to be the age old theme of the cycle of birth, reproduction and death, alongside a sustained pictorial focus upon feminine concerns and pre-occupations
Using performance assessment in secondary school mathematics: an empirical study in a Singapore classroom
No full textThis article reports an exploratory study on using performance assessment in mathematics instruction in a high-performing secondary school in Singapore. An intact mathematics class participated in the study, and received chapter-based performance tasks as intervention during regular mathematics lessons for about one and a half school years. The performance tasks used included authentic and/or open-ended tasks. The students’ academic achievements and attitudes in mathematics were compared with a comparison class that did not receive the intervention. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected, mainly through questionnaire surveys, performance task tests, conventional school exams, and interviews with students and teachers. The results suggest that the students receiving the intervention performed significantly better than their counterparts in solving conventional exam problems, and in general they also showed more positive changes in attitudes towards mathematics and mathematics learning. The students from the experimental class also expressed positive views about the benefits of using performance tasks in promoting their ability in higher order thinking, though no statistically significant difference was detected between the two classes of students in solving unconventional tasks before and after intervention. Overall, the results appear to support teachers’ using contextualised problems in real life situations and open-ended investigations in students’ learning of mathematic
The effect of E. coli endotoxin on the metabolic responses of Wistar rats
No full textEscherichia coli endotoxin is a potent stimulator of IL-1 and cachectin/TNF production from macrophages. Both IL-1 and cachectin/TNF have been implicated in muscle protein loss, acute phase protein synthesis, fever, depressed serum zinc, and elevate serum corticosterone concentration. The source of mobilized amino acids during infection and inflammation is believed to come from muscle proteolysis. Data presented in this thesis clearly indicated that the relative contribution to the negative N balance by skin and bone should not be neglected. The reduction in fractional rates of protein synthesis measured by injection of flooding doses of [3H]-phenylalanine in the endotoxin was in the order of skin (abdomen) > bone > muscle. These also run parallel with the reduction of protein content. Total liver protein synthesised per day in the endotoxin-treated animals was increased. Some preparations of E. coli endotoxin (phenol and TCA extract) (ED) are hypothermic and enhanced greater reduction in food intake and body weight loss; while the butanol extracts of endotoxin (ES) caused fever, produced less anorexia and body weight loss. The reason for these differences is not clear but may be due to the production of potent shock mediator, cachectin/TNF and/or stimulation on the sympatho-adrenal nervous sytem. The latter action may be modulated by protaglandins since indomethacin prevented ED-induced hypothermia. Administration of the β-adrengeric blocker propranolol, blunted the ES-induced hyperthermia and delayed the recovery of ED-induced hypothermia. The contribution of heat from non-thermogenesis in brown adipose tissue is unimportant in the production of fever since the binding of [^3H]-GDP to BAT mitochondria in both hyperthermic and hypothermic animals did not differ from that of the saline-treated animals. The present investigation suggests the existence of the diurnal variation in the body temperature responses to endotoxin. Both ES and ED produced hypothermia. Furthermore, reversed the lighting cycles (6pm-6am) (RL) affected : serum zinc, corticosterone, except for tissue protein loss. Both ES and ED produced hypothermia in the RL-adopted rats. The production and actions of IL-1 and cachectin/TNF may be affected by dietary fatty acids concentration and composition. Feeding rats with diets either enriched with or supplemented by 30g/kg, 90g/kg and 200g/kg of hydrogenated coconut oil (HCO); or by the 9og/Kg fish oil (FO) abolished most of the metabolic responses to ED injection. Both HCO and FO could influence the response via a reduction in prostaglandins and leukotrienes by reducing the formation of arachidonic acid (AA) precursor of eicosanoids. Fatty acids composition analysis from the PC fraction of the spleen showed a decreased amount of AA in the order of FO > HCO > CO. Pretreatment with the cycloxygenase inhibitor, indomethacin blocked body weight loss, prevented protein loss from peripheral tissues, and affected the elevation of serum corticosterone; whereas the lipoxygenase inhibitor AA861 inhibited ED-induced hypozincemia, and muscle cathepsin B activity. Total liver protein was unaffected by inhibitors, and HCO or FO feeding. T ese data suggested that many of the endotoxin-induced metabolic changes are controlled by metabolites of AA, and that the acute-phase proteins synthesis by the liver is independent of eicosanoids production. Dietary fats manipulation moderated the metabolic responses to E. coli endotoxin through both pathways. (D74421/87)</p
Development of a rotor model for the numerical simulation of helicopter exterior flow-fields
No full textIncludes bibliographical references (leaves 84-85).A numerical methodology is developed to model the effect of a rotor on the surrounding flow-field. The model calculates the time-averaged aerodynamic forces exerted on the air by the fan blades within the blade-swept region, and permits the user to specify blade properties such as cross-sectional profile and orientation at a particular radial and azimuthal location. The calculated forces are included as source terms within the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations for an incompressible fluid, which are solved by the commercial CFD solver, FLUENT. The effects of turbulence are incorporated through the use of Launder and Spalding's k-g turbulence model. This method is selected as being the most efficient use of the resources available, giving the economic advantages of a steady simulation, while allowing radial and azimuthal variations of rotor characteristics. In order to validate the accuracy of the numerical model for both aligned and non-aligned inflow conditions, results are compared with experimental data reported for an axial flow fan. Agreement between experimental and numerical results is excellent to good. Fan static pressure rise is closely predicted by the numerical solution, while fan power consumption and fan static efficiency are under and over-predicted respectively. This error may be attributed to frictional losses not accounted for in the numerical model. These include physical rotational instabilities, leading to increased mechanical losses, and tip effects due to the clearance between the fan blade tips and the fan casing. Trends are nevertheless consistently predicted by the numerical model for inflow angles up to 45°, and for the range of blade pitch settings used. The adverse effect of off-axis inflow on the fan static pressure rise is numerically predicted, while fan power consumption is found to remain independent of inflow angle, as had been experimentally observed. The rotor model is finally integrated with the fuselage of the CIRSTEL (Combined Infra-Red Suppression and Tail rotor Elimination) prototype in an analysis of the helicopter exterior flow-field. No experimental data for this configuration was available for validation purposes. However, the model is used in the simulation of several common helicopter flight conditions. Results are presented graphically, and generally indicate good agreement with physically observed phenomena
FAN 2002: um modelo neuro-fuzzy para reconhecimento de padrões
No full textTese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia de Produção.Nesta tese é apresentado FAN 2002 - free associtive neurons - como uma abordagem neuro-fuzzy para reconhecimento supervisionado de padrões. Aspectos foram modificados desde a sua publicação inicial, em 1997: a criação de células para a combinação de características é substituida pela inclusão de uma característica extra que representa a combinação das demais; a forma de realizar a penalização em caso de erro é modificada; a inicialização dos neurônios é realizada com valores aleatórios; um hedge é usado no teste de um padrão. Os resultados em aplicações são mostrados: no problema de classificação de cromossomos, a comparação com os resultados o obtidos por outros métodos apresentados ilustra o desenvolvimento do modelo desde as suas primeiras implementações; A aplicação do modelo em jogos de empresas na construção de um agente; Os conceitos de FAN na construção dos Mapas FAN e a solução do problema do XOR. A apresentação de FAN 2002 visa proporcionar aos interessados na aplicação de soluções em reconhecimento de padrões uma ferramenta útil e de uso geral.A conclusão do trabalho mostra o resumo dos avanços obtidos no desenvolvimento de FAN e aponta para o futuro do método uma possibilidade interdisciplinar de subsidiar pesquisadores de outras áreas a resolverem os seus próprios problemas de classificação e reconhecimento
Consumption outside the market: an ethnography of consumer resistance among football fans
No full textThis study analysed football fandom utilising an ethnographic approach. Football fandom was selected as a research site for the study because it offered scope to explore for the presence of non-traditional forms of cultural capital (Bourdieu 1984).
It also offered scope to explore the extent to which fandom was a form of sacred consumption (Belk et a1 1989). Ethnography was selected as an appropriate methodology for several reasons. It provided the opportunity to develop a holistic perspective on fandom and it further provided scope to utilise an emergent design approach in the development of a conceptual understanding of fandom. What emerged fiom the ethnographic investigation of two separate football fan communities was that consumers experience and maintain a sense of the sacred by operating their own unofficial markets in competition with the official market in fanrelated goods and services. They also maintain localised systems of cultural capital which allow them to socially construct and maintain a sense of hierophany within their own communities (Belk et a1 1989), in opposition to the homogenised fan identity proffered by the official market. These systems of cultural capital not only allow fans to experience the sacred but also facilitate their sense of relationship with like-minded others in self-selecting communities of shared taste
Creative involution : overcoming man : becoming-woman
No full textThe thesis is written in the pursuit of true difference. Its contention is that true
difference has been obscured by a model of difference which is dialectical in nature.
Western thought has been largely informed by a metaphysic in which difference has
been subordinated to the One and the Identical and which can only ever return as the
Same.
In utilising the writings of Foucault, Deleuze, Deleuze-Nietzsche, Deleuze-Bergson
and Bergson, this thesis strives to find for a new image of thought, that can go beyond
representation through which true difference can be known.
The thesis is framed in the context of the problematic of 'the death of man' as that
which Foucault formulates as eternally returning as the Same. Foucault raises the
question of Man's disappearance and in doing so also opens up the question of what
might come after Man. It will be argued, that what comes after man, that which
Nietzsche has named the Overman, is the becoming-woman of man.
The aim is to show that becoming-woman, once freed from the representational
system, can be thought of as an active, affirmative death through which difference can
be thought in-itself as the continual movement of vital life The nature of a
Becoming-woman is, in turn, framed in the context of Deleuze's search for difference
in-itself and, Bergson's philosophy of nature.
It will be argued, in conclusion, that becoming-woman is the rebirth of the eternal
return of difference which, in man, reaches into the consciousness of self
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