5,862 research outputs found
The place where curses are manufactured : four poets of the Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was unique among American wars. To pinpoint its uniqueness, it was necessary to look for a non-American voice that would enable me to articulate its distinctiveness and explore the American character as observed by an Asian. Takeshi Kaiko proved to be most helpful. From his novel, Into a Black Sun, I was able to establish a working pair of 'bookends' from which to approach the poetry of Walter McDonald, Bruce Weigl, Basil T. Paquet and Steve Mason. Chapter One is devoted to those seemingly mismatched 'bookends,' Walt Whitman and General William C. Westmoreland, and their respective anthropocentric and technocentric visions of progress and the peculiarly American concept of the "open road" as they manifest themselves in Vietnam. In Chapter, Two, I analyze the war poems of Walter McDonald. As a pilot, writing primarily about flying, his poetry manifests General Westmoreland's technocentric vision of the 'road' as determined by and manifest through technology. Chapter Three focuses on the poems of Bruce Weigl. The poems analyzed portray the literal and metaphorical descent from the technocentric, 'numbed' distance of aerial warfare to the world of ground warfare, and the initiation of a 'fucking new guy,' who discovers the contours of the self's interior through a set of experiences that lead from from aerial insertion into the jungle to the degradation of burning human
feces. Chapter Four, devoted to the thirteen poems of Basil T. Paquet, focuses on the continuation of the descent begun in Chapter Two. In his capacity as a medic, Paquet's entire body of poems details his quotidian tasks which entail tending the maimed, the mortally wounded and the dead. The final chapter deals with Steve Mason's JohnnY's Song, and his depiction of the plight of Vietnam veterans back in "The World" who are still trapped inside the interior landscape of their individual "ghettoes" of the soul created by their war-time experiences
Church growth models and the early Quakers
This thesis explores numeric church growth generally, and the early Quaker movement specifically, within the paradigm of models. A wide variety of practitioner church-growth models have appeared since the 1890s. The emergence of Quakerism in the mid-1650s, however, has never before been explored as a model of church growth. This thesis argues that models are effective at theoretically conceptualizing church growth. Its results elevate the theoretical above the descriptive, providing generalizability. With this approach, several original contributions are made in developing a construct-based model framework and establishing a theoretical system of comparison to analyze both modern and primary texts. It is argued that the Quaker pattern of church growth, as outlined by George Fox in his journal, presents a uniquely provocative model, not elsewhere documented among church-growth model authors. Additionally, the model approach provides a systemic perspective of prior scholarship on the Quaker growth phenomenon
Conscience and Consciousness: British Theatre and Human Rights.
This research project investigates a paradigm of human rights theatre. Through the lens of performance and theatre-making, this thesis explores how we came to represent, speak about, discuss, and own human rights in Britain. My framework of ‘human rights theatre’ proposes three distinctive features: firstly, such works dramatise real-world issues and highlights the role of the state in endangering its citizens; secondly, ethical ruptures are encountered within and without the drama, and finally, these performances characteristically aspire to produce an activist effect on the collective behaviours of the audience.
This thesis interrogates the strategies theatre-makers use to articulate human rights concerns or to animate human rights intent. The selected case-studies for this investigation are ice&fire’s testimonial project, Actors for Human Rights; Badac Theatre; Jonathan Holmes’ work as director of Jericho House; Cardboard Citizens’ youth participation programme, ACT NOW; and Tony Cealy’s Black Men’s Consortium. Deliberately selecting companies and performance events that have received limited critical attention, my methodology constellates case-studies through original interviews, durational observation of creative working methods and proximate descriptions of practice.
The thesis is interested in the experience of coming to ‘consciousness’ through human rights theatre, an awakening to the impacts of rights infringements and rights claiming. I explore consciousness as a processual, procedural, and durational happening in these performance events. I explore the ‘æffect’ of activist art and examine the ways in which makers of human rights theatre aim to amplify both affective and effective qualities in their work. My thesis also considers the articulation of activist purpose and the campaigning intent of the selected theatre-makers and explores how their activism is animated in their productions. Through the rich seam of discussion generated by the identification and exploration of the traits of a distinctive human rights theatre, I affirm the generative value of this typological enquiry
Expanding the scope of single-molecule energy transfer with gold nanoparticles and graphene
Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) is a common tool to measure the distances between a donor and an acceptor fluorophore and is employed as a spectroscopic ruler. This non-radiative energy transfer is utilized to not only measure distances but also to observe dynamics in the field of biophysics and medicine. However, main limitations of FRET are the limited time resolution and working range between donor and acceptor molecules of 10 nm. To increase the application of FRET, this limitation can be circumvented by the introduction of different ma-terials in the close proximity. For characterization of the altered distance dependence, a precise distance control between the dyes and the applied material is required, which here is provided by the DNA origami technique. In DNA origami, DNA self-assembles into programmable, complex, and robust structures, which can be easily modified with dyes and other entities with nanometric control.
DNA origami nanoantennas constructed of a pair of gold nanoparticles have recently been introduced to substantially increase the obtainable fluorescence signal that yields a higher time resolution in biophysical single-molecule FRET experiments. In this context, it is crucial to understand the influence of the gold nanoparticles on the FRET process itself. In this work, gold nanoparticles are placed next to FRET pairs using the DNA origami technique (see publication I). A measurement procedure to accurately determine energy transfer efficiencies is estab-lished and reveals that in the intermediate coupling regime, the energy transfer efficiency drops in the presence of nanoparticles whereas the energy transfer rate constant from the donor to the acceptor is not significantly altered.
Next, graphene is introduced to increase the range of energy transfer. Graphene is a 2D carbon lattice, which can also be employed as an unbleachable broadband acceptor without labeling. To understand the principles of the energy transfer between a fluorophore and the graphene surface, the distance dependence of the energy transfer from a fluorophore to graphene is investigated (see publication II). As such experiments require high quality graphene surfac-es, a cleaning and transferring procedure to generate reproducible graphene-on-glass-coverslips is established (see publication III) and characterized by different spectroscopic methods. Finally, the full potential of graphene-on-glass coverslips as microscopy platforms are highlighted by adopting graphene in the fields of biosensing, biophysics and super-resolution microscopy (see publication IV). The designed biosensors are capable to detect a DNA target, a viscosity change, or the binding of a biomolecule. In addition, FRET between two dyes is expanded by additional graphene energy transfer (GET) that reveals the relative orientation of the FRET pairs to the graphene surface. Finally, GET is used in super-resolution experiments to reach isotopic nanometric 3D-resolution and track a single fluorophore that undergoes 6-nm jumps. The developed techniques and assays have the potential to become the basis for numerous new applications in single-molecule sensing, biophysics, and super-resolution microscopy
Development of MEMS - based IMU for position estimation: comparison of sensor fusion solutions
With the surge of inexpensive, widely accessible, and precise Micro-Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) in recent years, inertial systems tracking move ment have become ubiquitous nowadays. Contrary to Global Positioning Sys tem (GPS)-based positioning, Inertial Navigation System (INS) are intrinsically
unaffected by signal jamming, blockage susceptibilities, and spoofing. Measure ments from inertial sensors are also acquired at elevated sampling rates and may
be numerically integrated to estimate position and orientation knowledge. These
measurements are precise on a small-time scale but gradually accumulate errors
over extended periods. Combining multiple inertial sensors in a method known as
sensor fusion makes it possible to produce a more consistent and dependable un derstanding of the system, decreasing accumulative errors. Several sensor fusion
algorithms occur in literature aimed at estimating the Attitude and Heading
Reference System (AHRS) of a rigid body with respect to a reference frame.
This work describes the development and implementation of a low-cost, multi purpose INS for position and orientation estimation. Additionally, it presents an
experimental comparison of a series of sensor fusion solutions and benchmarking
their performance on estimating the position of a moving object. Results show
a correlation between what sensors are trusted by the algorithm and how well it
performed at estimating position. Mahony, SAAM and Tilt algorithms had best
general position estimate performance.Com o recente surgimento de sistemas micro-eletromecânico amplamente acessÃveis
e precisos nos últimos anos, o rastreio de movimento através de sistemas de in erciais tornou-se omnipresente nos dias de hoje. Contrariamente à localização
baseada no Sistema de Posicionamento Global (GPS), os Sistemas de Naveg ação Inercial (SNI) não são afetados intrinsecamente pela interferência de sinal,
suscetibilidades de bloqueio e falsificação. As medições dos sensores inerciais
também são adquiridas a elevadas taxas de amostragem e podem ser integradas
numericamente para estimar os conhecimentos de posição e orientação. Estas
medições são precisas numa escala de pequena dimensão, mas acumulam grad ualmente erros durante longos perÃodos. Combinar múltiplos sensores inerci ais num método conhecido como fusão de sensores permite produzir uma mais
consistente e confiável compreensão do sistema, diminuindo erros acumulativos.
Vários algoritmos de fusão de sensores ocorrem na literatura com o objetivo de
estimar os Sistemas de Referência de Atitude e Rumo (SRAR) de um corpo
rÃgido no que diz respeito a uma estrutura de referência. Este trabalho descreve
o desenvolvimento e implementação de um sistema multiusos de baixo custo
para estimativa de posição e orientação. Além disso, apresenta uma comparação
experimental de uma série de soluções de fusão de sensores e compara o seu de sempenho na estimativa da posição de um objeto em movimento. Os resultados
mostram uma correlação entre os sensores que são confiados pelo algoritmo e o
quão bem ele desempenhou na posição estimada. Os algoritmos Mahony, SAAM
e Tilt tiveram o melhor desempenho da estimativa da posição geral
Homeless at Home: The figure of the proto-queer woman in cinema of communist Poland (1970s â 1980s)
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