Threads of influence: Greek tragedy and its relevance to the contemporary novel, with specific reference to Donna Tartt's 'The secret history', and my novel, 'The first seven years'

This MPhil concerns the contemporary literary novel and how it has been influenced by the Golden Age of Greek tragedy. It comprises of three parts: the thesis and the novel, hereby presented, and the journal of creative experiences, which was observed at viva. My thesis examines the historical development of Greek tragedy and its structure. It further explores how tragedy has influenced writers through the ages, culminating in the literary tragedy of today. The methodology of tragic form is investigated in the works of writers educated in Greek tragic structure, and also those with no classical background. This thesis aims to show how novelists without a classical education have accessed the tragic form, via threads of literary influence, and utilised it successfully, albeit often unconsciously. My novel, The First Seven Years, is a work of contemporary tragic fiction. It tells the story of one woman’s attempts to do the best for her child. Trapped between raising her young son, Alfie, and caring for an increasingly frail elderly relative, Kate becomes emotionally and physically stretched. When she discovers Alfie has been badly bullied in his failing state school, her attempts to change schools have tragic consequences. Finally, my journal, presented at viva, compiles my creative thoughts, notes and research for both novel and thesis in one portfolio. My original notebooks show much of my novel’s planning and I have included visual images used of characters, buildings, locations, Kate’s photography and Martha’s pottery. Factual research is also integrated; investigating peripheral neuropathy, school league tables and admissions criteria. Thesis research includes relevant newspaper cuttings, programmes to Oedipus Rex and Phèdre, readings by DBC Pierre & Jeanette Winterson, and an interview with David Guterson. This journal has proved invaluable throughout my MPhil, both as an inspiration and an aide-mémoire

Characterization of Roman glass tesserae from the Coriglia excavation site (Italy) via energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry and Raman spectroscopy

The combined use of handheld energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry, Raman spectroscopy, and micro-energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry permitted the characterization of Roman glass tesserae excavation from the Coriglia (Italy) archeological site. Analyses of ten different glass colors were conducted as spot analyses on intact samples and as both spot analyses and line scans on select cross-sectioned samples. The elemental and molecular information gained from these spectral measurements allowed for the qualitative chemical characterization of the bulk glass, decolorants, opacifiers, and coloring agents. The use of an antimony opacifier in many of the samples supports the late Imperial phasing as determined through numismatic, fresco, ceramics, and architectural evidence. And dealinization of the exterior glass layers caused by the burial environment was confirmed

Animism, Materiality, and Museums

Among our most cherished modern assumptions is our distance from the material world we claim to love or, alternately, to dominate and own. As both devotional tool and art object, the Byzantine icon is rendered complicit in this distancing. According to well-established theological and scholarly explanations, the icon is a window onto the divine: it focuses and directs our minds to a higher understanding of God and saints. Despite their material richness, icons are understood to efface their own materiality, thereby enabling us to do the same. That the privileged relation of image to God is based on its capacity for material self-effacement is the basis for all theology of the icon and all art-historical description. It gets more complicated than this definition, to be sure, but the icon is positioned in this way in most straightforward accounts, whether devotional or scholarly. My position is to undermine the transcendentalizing determination of modern theology and aesthetics, and to lean very heavily on the materiality of these things to the point of allowing them, to the degree I can, a voice and life of their own

Simulation Relations among Message Passing and Mobile Agent Algorithms

Οι προσομοιώσεις στα κατανεμημένα συστήματα είναι πολύ ισχυρά εργαλεία, καθώς μας επιτρέπουν να αποδεικνύουμε τις σχέσεις διαφορετικών συστημάτων, να συγκρίνουμε τις δυνατότητες και την απόδοση τους και να μεταφέρουμε θετικά και αρνητικά αποτελέσματα από ένα σύστημα στο άλλο. Σε αυτή την εργασία θα εξετάσουμε την ισοδυναμία των κατανεμημένων συστημάτων ανταλλαγής μηνυμάτων (MP) και κινητών πρακτόρων (MA) μέσω μιας σχέσης προσομοίωσης. Στη συνέχεια θα ερευνηθεί ποιες προσομοιώσεις μπορούν να αποδειχθούν ανάμεσα στο μοντέλο ανταλλαγής μηνυμάτων και στο μοντέλο κινητών πρακτόρων, όταν κάποιες συνιστώσες των συστημάτων υποστούν βλάβη ή λειτουργούν υπό τις εντολές κάποιου αντιπάλου. Θα αποδείξουμε τις ακόλουθες σχέσεις προσομοίωσης: α) συστημάτων MA με μαύρες οπές από συστήματα MP με "διαρκώς αδρανείς επεξεργαστές", β) αλγορίθμων MP όπου στέλνονται το πολύ k-1 μηνύματα σε "διαρκώς αδρανείς επεξεργαστές" από συστήματα MA με μαύρες οπές και τουλάχιστον k πράκτορες, γ) συστημάτων ΜΑ με μαύρες+ οπές από συστήματα MP με χαλασμένους επεξεργαστές και δ) προσομοίωση συστημάτων MA με γκρίζες οπές από συστήματα MP με επεξεργαστές που παραλείπουν βήματα του αλγορίθμου. Επιπλέον, θα παρουσιάσουμε αποτελέσματα και αποδείξεις αδυναμίας επίτευξης στόχου των συστημάτων ανταλλαγής μηνυμάτων και κινητών πρακτόρων που προκύπτουν ως απόρροια των προσομοιώσεων που αποδείχθηκαν.Simulations of distributed systems are powerful, since they allow us to prove the relations among different systems, compare their capabilities and performance and transfer positive and impossibility results from one to another. This thesis aims at analyzing the equivalence of the message passing model and the mobile agent model via a simulation relation. Furthermore, we will examine the simulations that can be obtained between the message passing model and the mobile agent model, when some components of the systems may fail or be under adversarial attack. We prove the following: a) a simulation of a mobile agent system with black holes by a message passing system with always dead processes, b) a simulation of a message passing algorithm that sends at most k-1 messages to always dead processes by a mobile agent system with black holes and at least k mobile agents, c) a simulation of mobile agent black+ hole system by a message passing system with crash failures and d) a simulation of a mobile agent gray hole system by a message passing system with omission failures. Furthermore we present some positive and impossibility results as a consequence of the simulations presented

The American Nightmare: The Ford Edsel Flop and Sputnik Terror

During the late 1950s, it seemed everyone was pelting Ford Motor Company’s ill-fated Edsel. What was supposed to be the car of the future and an emblem of American prestige had turned into a symbol of America’s sharp decline. Two years earlier, Ford promised consumers riding on the waves of economic good times that they would no longer have to settle for their old entry-level Ford’s. Instead of allowing middle-class Ford customers to defect to General Motor’s flashy medium-price brands that showed personality and prestige, in 1957 Ford launched the Edsel as the perfect car for these “professional...famil[ies].” Yet soon after the Edsel launched, the Soviet Union’s Sputnik satellite made the good times come to a grinding halt. The triumphant America that Ford designed the Edsel for ceased to exist once the Soviets seemingly conquered outer space, and the failed Edsel only fueled America’s fears that they were slipping behind the Russians. Ultimately Ford tried selling excess, American technological prowess, and the American Dream when the Edsel and Sputnik were proof that all three were in jeopardy

Secure Federated Learning for Cognitive Radio Sensing

This paper considers reliable and secure Spectrum Sensing (SS) based on Federated Learning (FL) in the Cognitive Radio (CR) environment. Motivation, architectures, and algorithms of FL in SS are discussed. Security and privacy threats on these algorithms are overviewed, along with possible countermeasures to such attacks. Some illustrative examples are also provided, with design recommendations for FL-based SS in future CRs.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

2017 Fall - Seek - full issue (PDF)

Fall 2017 issue of See

Defining, transforming, and providing sacred presence : a sarcophagus reliquary in the Menil Collection

This thesis attempts a complete object biography of a fifth-century sarcophagus reliquary currently held by the Menil Collection in Houston. This thesis proposes that the Menil reliquary is a container with acute agency in its original context that continues into its modern museum context. This stone container has openings on its lid and front face, a pattern of carved birds and crosses, and is shaped like a Roman sarcophagus. The relics contained by this reliquary are completely concealed. This makes an analysis of their container even more vital, as the Menil reliquary carries the signifiers for the material inside. Without reliquaries surrounding them, relics would be unrecognizable fragments. Reliquaries define relics. Due to its iconographic program and complete circulation system for liquids, the Menil sarcophagus reliquary was displayed visibly in a late-antique pilgrimage church. A common belief in Late Antiquity was that sacred power could be transferred via touch. Liquids poured into the tops of sarcophagus reliquaries touched the relics, sources of sacred power, inside. When they exited the second opening in the reliquary, these substances had also become sacred material. Audiences of these reliquaries could then interact directly with the sacred power they desired by touching, tasting, and otherwise experiencing these sanctified fluids. Reliquaries with this ability, including the Menil reliquary, transformed and provided a means of contacting otherwise-inaccessible sacred presences. The Menil sarcophagus reliquary was a visible object that communicated the above abilities to its late-antique audience through its various physical features. The Menil reliquary continues to be a tangible point of recognition of and access to invisible, distant worlds in its modern location. As a museum object, the Menil sarcophagus reliquary has become a relic like those it once contained, while the institution of the Menil Collection acts a reliquary. This object has an ongoing vitality and, in both its late-antique and modern contexts, makes tangible the otherwise unattainable.Art Histor

Too Global To Be Local: Swarm Consensus in Adversarial Settings

Reaching a consensus in a swarm of robots is one of the fundamental problems in swarm robotics, examining the possibility of reaching an agreement within the swarm members. The recently-introduced contamination problem offers a new perspective of the problem, in which swarm members should reach a consensus in spite of the existence of adversarial members that intentionally act to divert the swarm members towards a different consensus. In this paper, we search for a consensus-reaching algorithm under the contamination problem setting by taking a top-down approach: We transform the problem to a centralized two-player game in which each player controls the behavior of a subset of the swarm, trying to force the entire swarm to converge to an agreement on its own value. We define a performance metric for each players performance, proving a correlation between this metric and the chances of the player to win the game. We then present the globally optimal solution to the game and prove that unfortunately it is unattainable in a distributed setting, due to the challenging characteristics of the swarm members. We therefore examine the problem on a simplified swarm model, and compare the performance of the globally optimal strategy with locally optimal strategies, demonstrating its superiority in rigorous simulation experiments.Comment: 23 pages, 20 figure