A Study of Baudelaire\u27s Symbols of the Feminine in Les Fleurs du mal

Using French and American feminist theory, I analyze Charles Baudelaire\u27s symbols in Les Fleurs du Mal in an attempt to come to terms with symbolic representations of the female that are at once traditional and transgressive. By examining the images of solids (statues, jewels, metals), lesbians and woman\u27s hair which appear frequently in Baudelaire\u27s text, I reveal Baudelaire\u27s desire to eliminate a woman\u27s generative power and her association with the procreative cycle of nature. His desire for a preoedipal union with the maternal female becomes evident in his early poems and his poems on the subject of a woman\u27s hair. Because he remains trapped in his acculturated association of woman with nature, his desire leads to fear: a fear of submersion in the maternal resulting in a loss of his masculine identity, and a fear of death as a part of nature\u27s generative cycle. By discussing significant poems in Les Fleurs du Mal-- To a Woman Passing By, The Beautiful Ship, The Jewels, Beauty, Metamorphasis of the Vampire, To She Who Is Too Gay, Carrion, Doomed Women, The Invitation to the Voyage, and Hair --I conclude that Baudelaire’s intense yearning for a nurturing relationship with his mother becomes a suppressed incestuous desire for her. Conversely, his unconscious leads him to distance himself from actual women in an effort to idealize them, thereby seeking to escape his own sense of mortality in favor of the immortality--the solid artifice--of aesthetic achievement

Factors Influencing University Enrollment Status of High School Students Recruited to Attend Louisiana State University.

The purpose of this study was to determine if a model existed which significantly increased the researcher\u27s ability to accurately explain whether or not a recruited student will enroll based upon current recruitment strategies and demographic characteristics. The population for this study was defined as all prospective freshmen students who were recruited to attend Louisiana State University in the fall of 1995 and fall 1996. A random sample of the population was drawn from the population of prospective high school graduating seniors on the admissions data base for the years 1994-96. Each recruitment year sample was stratified into three groups of approximately 600 each. The instrument used in this study was a computerized recording form. Thirty-five variables were analyzed for the 1995 recruitment class and 42 variables were reviewed for the 1996 recruitment class. Data was collected by copying the variables of interest from the undergraduate admissions data base onto the established recording form file. Findings revealed that substantively and statistically significant models exist which improved the researcher\u27s ability to accurately explain enrollment status. The variable which had the highest correlation with enrollment was the number of mail pieces sent to each student. Discriminant analysis was used to identify models which explained from 28% to 60% of the variance of the factors affecting student enrollment. In addition, the models correctly classified between 71% and 88% of the cases. Variables which contributed significantly included: the number of mail pieces a student received, whether or not they were awarded a scholarship, the amount of the scholarship, whether or not they received a response to receipt of their ACT score, and whether or not they were contacted by an LSU Ambassador. The researcher recommended refinement of the modeling process and officials at LSU to engage in further study to assist in the explanation and prediction of enrolling students. It was also recommended that admissions professionals in public, comprehensive universities investigate using this modeling process for enrollment planning

Paradox of the Abject: Postcolonial Subjectivity in Jamaica Kincaid’s The Autobiography of My Mother and Cristina García’s Dreaming in Cuban

In Powers of Horror, Julia Kristeva defines abjection as the seductive and destructive remainder of the process of entering the symbolic space of the father and leaving the pre-symbolic space of the mother, resulting in a desire to return to the jouissance of the pre-symbolic space. In this project, I read Jamaica Kincaid’s The Autobiography of My Mother as an attempt to link Xuela’s psychic abjection with the postcolonial identity. Xuela exists on the boundaries of the colonial dichotomy, embracing the space of the abject because she is haunted by her dead mother. She cannot return to her mother, so she inhabits the space of the abject, creating an abject lineage and symbolically writing the history of the Carib people. I use this novel as a stepping off point for a reading of Cristina García’s Dreaming in Cuban. Celia and Jorge are abjected as their bodies are tied to the nation; therefore, they produce abject children. Each of Celia’s children tries to return to the psychic, pre-symbolic space linked to the mother but cannot; therefore, they inhabit the space of the abject in a manner similar to how Xuela inhabits it, and their abjection is represented through their relationship to sugar. Only Pilar, as an artist, is able to move past abjection – the negative space of loss – to hybridity – the positive space of creation – to end the cycle. The significance of this reading of abjection in postcolonial literary studies is that these two postcolonial women’s texts both illustrate and attempt to resolve the problem of postcolonial female subjectivity, although to different degrees of success

Fully differential cross sections for four-body scattering processes

While the original concept of the atom can be traced back to the ancient Greeks, current knowledge of the atom is due largely to the study of atomic collisions. The structure of atoms is now fairly well understood, but the understanding of their interactions remains incomplete. In atomic collisions, the particles involved in the collision interact through the Coulomb force, which is known exactly. However, for Coulomb forces, the solution of the Schrödinger equation can only be obtained analytically for two mutually interacting particles. As a result, when more than two particles are involved, theory must resort to approximations. The validity of these approximations is then determined by comparison with experiment. Three new fully quantum-mechanical models that include all relevant two-particle interactions are presented here, and used to study fully differential cross sections (FDCS) of four-body collisions. In particular, this work focuses on electron-impact excitation-ionization of helium, as well as single charge transfer, transfer-excitation, and double charge transfer in proton + helium collisions. The calculations required for this work result in nine-dimensional integrals that are performed numerically. For excitation-ionization, the projectile-ejected electron interaction is found to be important in correctly predicting the shape of the FDCS. However, the projectile-atom and projectile-ion interactions play a much smaller role in this process. For single charge transfer and transfer-excitation, the current model does a reasonable job of predicting the shape and magnitude of experiment. However, for double charge transfer, the theoretical results overestimate experiment by several orders of magnitude. For all of the charge transfer collisions, calculations show that the interaction of the electrons within the target atom has little effect on the FDCS --Abstract, page iii

Managing Congestive Heart Failure : A Study Comparing The Management Provided By A Cardiologist, Family Physician And Nurse Practitioner

The purpose of this study was to determine if health care providers are following evidence-based guidelines for the screening, diagnosis and treatment of obese children

Better Too Much Than Not Enough : Women of Color on the Federal Bench

It is well established that the federal judiciary has been an overwhelmingly White and male institution since its creation and continues to be so today. Even as presidents of both parties have looked to diversify their judicial nominees, this has tended to result in the appointment of White women and men of color rather than women of color. Using data on the confirmed federal district and circuit court judges from presidents Clinton through Trump, we assess how the backgrounds of women of color nominated to the federal judiciary compare with those of other appointees. The results indicate that, compared to White male judges, women of color judges accrue more types of professional experience before their appointments, are more likely to have had prior experience as a judge, and are generally nominated earlier in their careers

Comparison of experimental and theoretical drag characteristics for a 10-percent-thick supercritical airfoil using a new version of an analysis code

Comparisons of experimental and theoretical drag characteristics for a 10-percent-thick supercritical airfoil using a new version of an advanced analysis code. Comparisons are made at near-design normal-force coefficients for Reynolds numbers from 2 to 11 million. Comments are made concerning various input parameters to the code

Fiscal Pressures and Discriminatory Policing: Evidence from Traffic Stops in Missouri

This paper provides evidence of racial variation in traffic enforcement responses to local government budget stress using data from policing agencies in the state of Missouri from 2001 through 2012. Like previous studies, we find that local budget stress is associated with higher citation rates; we also find an increase in traffic-stop arrest rates. However, we find that these effects are concentrated among White (rather than Black or Latino) drivers. The results are robust to the inclusion of a range of covariates and a variety of model specifications, including a regression discontinuity examining bare budget shortfalls. Considering potential mechanisms, we find that targeting of White drivers is higher where the White-to-Black income ratio is higher, consistent with the targeting of drivers who are better able to pay fines. Further, the relative effect on White drivers is higher in areas with statistical over-policing of Black drivers: when Black drivers are already getting too many fines, police cite White drivers from whom they are presumably more likely to be able to raise the needed extra revenue. These results highlight the relationship between policing-as-taxation and racial inequality in policing outcomes

Theoretical Fully Differential Cross Sections for Double-Charge-Transfer Collisions

We present a four-body model for double charge transfer, called the four-body double-capture model. This model explicitly treats all four particles in the collision, and we apply it here to fully differential cross sections (FDCSs) for proton+helium collisions. The effects of initial- and final-state electron correlations are studied, as well as the role of the projectile-nucleus interaction. We also present results for proton+helium single capture, as well as single-capture:double-capture ratios of FDCSs