“One Feeling in Such a Solitude”: Representations of Love and Marriage in the Works of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley

The early nineteenth century was characterized by a dynamic literary discussion and debate over the nature and effects of human relationships. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley, two of the foremost writers of the period, experimented with and drew conclusions about differing images of marriage within their works. Making use of this public literary genre, the couple engaged in a conversation with one another as they explored and refined their views and judgments of relationships including their own. The title of the paper is taken from the seventh chapter of the third volume of Frankenstein, in which Victor Frankenstein, devastated by the loss of his family members and friends and close to death himself, admits to Robert Walton that he has lost a sense of purpose in life

Mental Health Perceptions from Artwork

The relationship between artwork and mental health has been the subject of various research endeavours. Whilst artwork has been long used as a means of emotional expression, it is also a method of raising mental health awareness. In this study, an art collection was presented to depict the challenges faced by many individuals living with a mental illness. Through a series of open-ended questions, twenty-nine participants were requested to give a title to each piece and to describe the perceived message and emotions related to each painting. The thematic analysis process of the participants’ descriptions led to the identification of three themes, namely those of Darkness, Solitude and Recovery. Whilst congruence was often observed between the participants themselves and between the viewers and the artist, discrepancies were also noted. Artwork can be an important medium in addressing stigma and in guiding reflections on mental health topics

Studying a Virtual Testbed for Unverified Data

It is difficult to fully know the effects a piece of software will have on your computer, particularly when the software is distributed by an unknown source. The research in this paper focuses on malware detection, virtualization, and sandbox/honeypot techniques with the goal of improving the security of installing useful, but unverifiable, software. With a combination of these techniques, it should be possible to install software in an environment where it cannot harm a machine, but can be tested to determine its safety. Testing for malware, performance, network connectivity, memory usage, and interoperability can be accomplished without allowing the program to access the base operating system of a machine. After the full effects of the software are understood and it is determined to be safe, it could then be run from, and given access to, the base operating system. This thesis investigates the feasibility of creating a system to verify the security of unknown software while ensuring it will have no negative impact on the host machine

Apiary: Easy-to-use Desktop Application Fault Containment on Commodity Operating Systems

Desktop computers are often compromised by the interaction of untrusted data and buggy software. To address this problem, we present Apiary, a system that provides transparent application fault containment while retaining the ease of use of a traditional integrated desktop environment. Apiary accomplishes this with three key mechanisms. It isolates applications in containers that integrate in a controlled manner at the display and file system. It introduces ephemeral containers that are quickly instantiated for single application execution and then removed, to prevent any exploit that occurs from persisting and to protect user privacy. It introduces the virtual layered file system to make instantiating containers fast and space efficient, and to make managing many containers no more complex than having a single traditional desktop. We have implemented Apiary on Linux without any application or operating system kernel changes. Our results from running real applications, known exploits, and a 24-person user study show that Apiary has modest performance overhead, is effective in limiting the damage from real vulnerabilities to enable quick recovery, and is as easy to use as a traditional desktop while improving desktop computer security and privacy

Content shared on social media for national cancer survivors day 2018.

BACKGROUND:Studies estimate that the number of cancer survivors will double by 2050 due to improvements in diagnostic accuracy and treatment efficacy. Despite the growing population of cancer survivors, there is a paucity of research regarding how these individuals experience the transition from active treatment to long-term surveillance. While research has explored this transition from more organized venues, such as support groups for cancer survivors, this paper explores the discourses surrounding cancer survivorship on social media, paying particular attention to how individuals who identify as cancer survivors represent their experience. METHODS:We identified social media posts relating to cancer survivorship on Twitter and Instagram in early June 2018, in order to coincide with National Cancer Survivorship Day on June 3, 2018. We used nine pre-selected hashtags to identify content. For each hashtag, we manually collected the 150 most recent posts from Twitter and the 100 most recent plus the top 9 posts from Instagram. Our preliminary sample included 1172 posts; after eliminating posts from one hashtag due to irrelevance, we were left with 1063 posts. We randomly sampled 200 of these to create a subset for analysis; after review for irrelevant posts, 193 posts remained for analysis (118 from Instagram and 75 from Twitter). We utilized a grounded theory approach to analyze the posts, first open-coding a subset to develop a codebook, then applying the codebook to the rest of the sample and finally memo writing to develop themes. RESULTS:Overall, there is substantial difference in the tone and thematic content between Instagram and Twitter posts, Instagram takes on a more narrative form that represents journeys through cancer treatment and subsequent survivorship, whereas Twitter is more factual, leaning towards advocacy, awareness and fundraising. In terms of content type, 120 posts (62%) of the sample were images, of which 42 (35%) were images of the individual posting and 28 (23%) were images of patients posted by family or friends. Of the remaining images, 14 (12%) were of support groups and 7 (6%) were of family or friends. We identified four salient themes through analysis of the social media posts from Twitter and Instagram: social support, celebrating milestones and honoring survivors, expressing identity, and renewal vs. rebirth. DISCUSSION:We observed a marked relationship between physical appearance, functional status and survivorship. Additionally, our findings suggest the importance of social support for cancer patients and survivors as well as the role social media can pay in identity formation. CONCLUSION:Our findings suggest that individuals who identify as survivors on social media define their identity fluidly, incorporating elements of physical, emotional and psychological health as well as autonomy

More Than Defense in Daily Experience of Privacy: The Functions of Privacy in Digital and Physical Environments

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the experience of privacy, focusing on its functional role in personal well-being. A sample (N = 180) comprised subjects between 18 and 50 years of age were asked to spontaneously provide accounts of their experiences with privacy and answer close-ended questions to acquire a description of a daily experience of privacy. The results showed the importance attributed to the function of privacy related to the \u201cdefense from social threats\u201d, and the twofold function of privacy related to an \u201cachieved state of privacy\u201d, in the terms of both \u201csystem maintenance\u201d and \u201csystem development\u201d. The results also shed light on the role of the environment in shaping one\u2019s experience of privacy. Specifically, the participants recognized more easily the function of defense from threats related to seeking privacy while interacting in digital environments, whereas they seemed to benefit from positive functions related to an achieved state of privacy in physical environments. The findings sustain the notion of privacy as a supportive condition for some psychological processes involved in the positive human functioning and confirm previous studies conducted on the role of privacy in human well-being

Addiction and Recovery in Silas Marner

Depending on the historical period, culture, and available knowledge, addiction has been defined and theorized in numerous ways. Approaches to solving the problem of addiction have been similarly diverse. Medical knowledge is still fairly limited, and the debate still continues to this day on whether or not addiction is a moral choice. During the nineteenth century various forms of addiction including but not limited to opium and alcohol had reached epidemic levels. Consequently, the subject of addiction is a major theme in many Victorian novels. In the nineteenth century, Susan Zieger explains, the word “addiction” was used to describe a “devotion, pursuit, penchant, or fondness” (Zieger). She adds that it was not until later that the definition included drugs as the “penchants and pursuits,” showing that addiction had not always been linked specifically with substance abuse (Zieger). Zieger states that discourses revolving around addiction typically had to do with “materialism, physicalism, and evolution” and notes that while scientists attributed the disease to heredity, others “argued that individuals ultimately retained control of their own wills, desires, habits, and impulses; by choosing a bad habit, they committed a sin or harmed themselves” (Zieger). She notes, however, that psychologist William B. Carpenter held the slightly more advanced theory “that repetitiveness could form habit,” which might “lie beyond the will’s power to check it” (Zieger). The dominant scientific theory of addiction in nineteenth-century Europe was degeneration theory, which “defined degeneration as the progressive accumulation of disabilities, such as epilepsy and imbecility over generations, leading toward extinction” (London 100). Theorists suggested that “substance abuse could trigger this condition and so harm both the nation and its progeny” (100)

A Spiritual Model For Recovery Of Pastors Suffering Burnout (The Pine Springs Retreat)

Problem Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) pastors fill increasingly complex job expectations in the 1990s. Many pastors perceive they suffer from greater stressors than have any other generation of SDA pastors. Many claim burnout is hurting their job performance. It is the purpose of this study to measure the perceived levels of burnout among a cross section of SDA pastors in Southeastern California Conference of SDA (SECCSDA), plan and initiate an intervention to treat the symptoms of burnout, and analyze the effectiveness of the intervention. Method An original perception-test instrument was used to measure the perceived feelings of burnout among approximately eighty SDA pastors in southern California at a workers\u27 meeting of all SDA pastors in the SECCSDA. Demographic data was also gathered by means of the test instrument in order to compare various factors and their apparent effect on perceptions of burnout. Six pastors from three selected sectors of the pastoral working force were then invited to a three-day intervention: a Spiritual Disciplines Retreat conducted by the author of this project report. Follow-up testing of both retreat participants and non-retreat pastors from the same three selected sectors was performed and the results compared to test the theory that an intervention of this nature would reduce perceived levels of burnout among SDA pastors. Results Though based upon a sample too small to make generalized predictions, a trend of decrease in perceived levels of burnout was recorded among those participating in the retreat as compared with those pastors not participating. Conclusions It would appear that though the practice of spiritual disciplines does affect the perceived level of burnout in SDA pastors, other factors also contribute to their overall well-being. It also seems evident that the variables which contribute to the burnout perceptions of SDA pastors are so wide-ranging that to single out non-practice of the spiritual disciplines as a major predictor of burnout would be unwise