8,088 research outputs found
Moby-Dick as Proto-Modernist Prophecy
This project relies on two main bodies of work: the text and reception history of Moby-Dick. I argue that the novelâs prophetic insights unfold in its failure and resurrection. The reception history consists of early reviewers, biographers, and critics both hailing and discounting Moby-Dickâs literary value. The first section, âProto-Modernist Melville: Specific Difficulty in Moby-Dick,â explores the peculiar difficulty inherent in the text of Moby-Dick, namely its divergent, evasive, and hieroglyphic properties. Chapter 2, âReception: Nineteenth-Century Failure and Modernist Success,â chronicles the novelâs reception history, focusing largely on the critics of twentieth-century modernism. In âMoby-Dick as Prophetic Anticipation and Fulfillment,â I examine the link between the inherent difficulty found within Moby-Dick and its reception history. I propose that Melvilleâs novel theorizes its prophetic anticipation of literary modernism as well as Melvilleâs own authorial failure and redemption narrative
Recommended from our members
The political economy of Russiaâs economic transition problems since 1991 and their implications for Russiaâs relations with the west
Copyright @ 2001, The Author
Guaranteed Road Network Search with Small Unmanned Aircraft
The use of teams of small unmanned aircraft in real-world rapid-response missions is fast becoming a reality. One such application is search and detection of an evader in urban areas. This paper draws on results in graph-based pursuit-evasion, developing mappings from these abstractions to primitive motions that may be performed by aircraft, to produce search strategies providing guaranteed capture of road-bound targets. The first such strategy is applicable to evaders of arbitrary speed and agility, offering a conservative solution that is insensitive to motion constraints pursuers may possess. This is built upon to generate two strategies for capture of targets having a known speed bound that require searcher teams of much smaller size. The efficacy of these algorithms is demonstrated by evaluation in extensive simulation using realistic vehicle models across a spectrum of environment classes
Moral Courage in Organizations
{Excerpt} Moral courage is the strength to use ethical principles to do what one believes is right even though the result may not be to everyoneâs liking or could occasion personal loss. In organizations, some of the hardest decisions have ethical stakes: it is everyday moral courage that sets an organization and its members apart.
Courage is the ability to confront danger, fear, intimidation, pain, or uncertainty. Physical courage is fortitude in the face of death (and its threat), hardship, or physical pain. Moral courage, the form the attribute nowadays refers to, is put simply the ability to act rightly in the face of discouragement or opposition,possibly and knowingly running the risk of adverse personal consequences. Springing from ethicsânotably integrity, responsibility, compassion, and forgivenessâit is thequality of mind or spirit that enables a person to withstand danger, difficulty, or fear; persevere; and venture. Comprehensivelyâas said by Christopher Rate et al., it is awillful, intentional act, executed after mindful deliberation, involving objective substantial risk to the bearer, and primarily motivated to bring about a noble good or worthy enddespite, perhaps, the presence of the emotion of fear
Collective Motion of Predictive Swarms
Theoretical models of populations and swarms typically start with the
assumption that the motion of agents is governed by the local stimuli. However,
an intelligent agent, with some understanding of the laws that govern its
habitat, can anticipate the future, and make predictions to gather resources
more efficiently. Here we study a specific model of this kind, where agents aim
to maximize their consumption of a diffusing resource, by attempting to predict
the future of a resource field and the actions of other agents. Once the agents
make a prediction, they are attracted to move towards regions that have, and
will have, denser resources. We find that the further the agents attempt to see
into the future, the more their attempts at prediction fail, and the less
resources they consume. We also study the case where predictive agents compete
against non-predictive agents and find the predictors perform better than the
non-predictors only when their relative numbers are very small. We conclude
that predictivity pays off either when the predictors do not see too far into
the future or the number of predictors is small.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figure
Impact of a visual skills training program on visual performance of cricket fielders
The primary aim of this study was to determine whether a cricket specific visual skills training program has an impact on the visual performance of cricket fielders. The specific visual skills included accommodation, visual memory, speed of recognition, peripheral awareness, hand-eye coordination and saccadic eye movement. The study was exploratory and true-experimental in nature and utilized a quantitative approach. The pretest-posttest randomized group design was used. A total number of 20 participants that met the inclusion criteria were included in the study by means of purposive sampling. The 20 participants were randomly assigned to control (n=10) and experimental (n=10) groups. The experimental group underwent six-weeks of visual skills training. The tests used consisted of the Accumulator, Evasion, Corner Stretch and Flash tests on the Batak Pro, Hand-eye-coordination test, Hart Near Far Rock Chart and a Saccadic eye movement chart. Differences between the pre- and post-test scores were all positive and statistically (p0.2) significant for the experimental group for the following visual skills tests: Hart Chart (M=7.90±3.73), Saccadic Chart (M=17.50±9.58), Accumulator (M=19.60±5.13), Corner Stretch (M=10.50±9.56) and Flash (M=5.40±3.75). The Evasion test (M=17.50±25.67) also showed a positive but insignificant improvement from pre- to post-test for the experimental group. The control group did not show any statistically significant improvements from pre- to post-test except in the case of Hart Chart (M=3.00±2.16) and Accumulator (M=2.40±2.55). Overall the experimental group produced significantly larger (p0.20) pre- to post-test mean differences than the control group for six of the seven tests implemented. The Ball Toss test which was one of three hand-eye coordination tests did not show any significant differences between experimental and control groups even though the experimental group produced larger improvements. The other two tests that assessed hand-eye coordination (Accumulator and Corner Stretch) did, however reflect significant improvements for the experimental group. The findings of this study therefore revealed that improvements in visual skill performance of cricket players can be achieved through specific training
A closer look at economic psychology
Economic History;Economic Psychology
Promoting an Effective Market Economy in a Changing World
In this paper we examine the main challenges in promoting an effective market economy. While the paper ranges widely across the spectrum of economic institutions and policies, the central theme is the importance of macroeconomic stability for economic growth in the medium and long run. Macroeconomic stability may be seen as a public good. Its provision is among the essential responsibilities of the state both in modern market economies and in economies transforming themselves into modern market economies. Following this brief introduction, Section II considers four key aspects of the economic environment of the coming decade: increasing internationalisation; market-orientation; diminished government role; high real interest rates. Section III reviews the reasons why macroeconomic stability matters for economic performance and summarises the key empirical evidence supporting the existence of a causal link. Section IV deals with the design of domestic and international policies and institutions to promote macroeconomic stability and Section V asks how national governments and international institutions can take advantage of the current relatively stable global macroeconomic environment to improve medium-term growth. Section IV concludes. While our discussion will range broadly both theoretically and empirically, we shall emphasise lessons for , and experience from, countries attempting to create a market economy.
- âŠ