Waiting for a queer change: Gender identity through performative waiting and the Boudoir Chronotope in Call Me By Your Name

This thesis analyses André Aciman’s novel, Call Me By Your Name (2007), in light of its portrayal of a nineteen-eighties gay relationship that is not entirely defined by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Rather than the abjection associated with illness and death, I focus on the narrative’s evocation of pleasure and love for its protagonists, Elio and Oliver, who do not identify as exclusively gay. My argument focuses on Elio exemplifying and undermining Roland Barthes’ trope of the lover-who-waits as historically ‘feminine’ in A Lover’s Discourse. In doing so, I demonstrate how Barthes’s work prefigures Judith Butler’s gender performativity theory. First, I trace performativity theory to its origins with J. L. Austin’s theory of speech acts, considering its criticisms and developments. I then apply this to Aciman’s protagonist, Elio, in the novel to argue that his waiting is a performative act that is ‘doing’ a gender. I analyse how the protagonist’s waiting shifts, becoming a sexual enticement that is analogous to the historical space and literary trope of the boudoir. Finally, I draw upon Michel Foucault’s work and the HIV/AIDS pandemic of the nineteen-eighties epoch to align the contextual origins of the French eighteenth century boudoir, and its English developments, to the historical setting of Aciman’s novel. I consider the pathologisation of the female body during the eighteenth century and how that parallels the pathologisation of the queer body in the late twentieth century. I argue that the boudoir actually operates, both historically and in the novel, according to Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of chronotope. My aim is not to demonstrate how Elio is ‘female’ or ‘male’ as he ‘waits’ in the ‘boudoir’, but how his identity exists outside the binary of male/female and straight/gay. I argue that Elio is a queer identity that aligns to Butler’s performativity theory as he continually is ‘doing’ and ‘undoing’ gender. I conclude by reflecting how Aciman’s novel refreshes queer literature, avoiding perpetuated ‘coming out’ narratives and HIV/AIDS themes: the novel ceases the wait for a literary queer change

The Long Wavelength Array Software Library

The Long Wavelength Array Software Library (LSL) is a Python module that provides a collection of utilities to analyze and export data collected at the first station of the Long Wavelength Array, LWA1. Due to the nature of the data format and large-N ($\gtrsim$100 inputs) challenges faced by the LWA, currently available software packages are not suited to process the data. Using tools provided by LSL, observers can read in the raw LWA1 data, synthesize a filter bank, and apply incoherent de-dispersion to the data. The extensible nature of LSL also makes it an ideal tool for building data analysis pipelines and applying the methods to other low frequency arrays.Comment: accepted to the Journal of Astronomical Instrumentation; 24 pages, 4 figure

Dynamic Network Construction and Updating Techniques for the Diagnoses of Acute Abdominal Pain

Computing diagnoses in domains with continuously changing data is a difficult, but essential aspect of solving many problems. To address this task, this paper describes a dynamic influence diagram (ID) construction and updating system, DYNASTY, and its application to constructing a decision-theoretic model to diagnose acute abdominal pain, a domain in which the findings evolve during the diagnostic process. For a system which evolves over time, DYNASTY constructs a parsimonious ID, and then dynamically updates the ID, rather than constructing a new network from scratch for every time interval. In addition, DYNASTY contains algorithms for testing the sensitivity of the constructed network\u27s system parameters. The main contributions of this paper are: (1) presenting an efficient temporal influence diagram technique based on parsimonious model construction; and (2) formalizing the principles underlying a diagnostic tool for acute abdominal pain which explicitly models time-varying findings

Purlin Design to AISI LRFD Using Rational Buckling Analysis

The latest edition of the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) Specification for the Design of Cold-Formed Steel Structural Members was published in 1996 (AISI, 1996). Design rules are presented in both allowable stress design (ASD) and load and resistance factor design (LRFD) formats. The LRFD rules of the latest AISI Specification form the basis of the Australian/New Zealand Standard AS/NZS 4600:1996 Cold-Formed Steel Structures (SA/SNZ, 1996), which was published in late 1996 and supersedes the corresponding Australian permissible stress Standard AS 1538-1988. One of the main applications of cold-formed steel is purlins and girts in metal roof and wall systems. The design rules for these structural members have been refined over the years and procedures are now available which allow the effects of the sheeting restraint, lapped regions, and height of load application to be incorporated. Nevertheless, unlike AS/NZS 4600: 1996, the AISI Specification does not explicitly allow the use of advanced numerical techniques such as rational elastic buckling analyses within Clause C3 .1.2 to improve the accuracy and reliability of the design procedures. This paper summarises the existing two approaches to puriin design (herein termed the C-factor approach and the R-factor approach) in the AISI Specification, and presents a third approach based on the use of elastic rational buckling analysis to determine the lateral buckling strength of the purlin system. The relative merits and drawbacks of each approach are discussed. The importance of distortional buckling as a failure mode to be considered (currently neglected in the AISI Specification but included in AS/NZS 4600:1996) is also highlighted. The ultimate load capacities computed using the various design models are compared with test results obtained from vacuum rig testing at the University of Sydney over a period of more than 10 years. The use of rational elastic buckling analysis in conjunction with the existing AISI beam strength curve is found to be effective as a means of assessing the lateral buckling strength of puriin systems

Understanding Statistics and Experimental Design

This open access textbook provides the background needed to correctly use, interpret and understand statistics and statistical data in diverse settings. Part I makes key concepts in statistics readily clear. Parts I and II give an overview of the most common tests (t-test, ANOVA, correlations) and work out their statistical principles. Part III provides insight into meta-statistics (statistics of statistics) and demonstrates why experiments often do not replicate. Finally, the textbook shows how complex statistics can be avoided by using clever experimental design. Both non-scientists and students in Biology, Biomedicine and Engineering will benefit from the book by learning the statistical basis of scientific claims and by discovering ways to evaluate the quality of scientific reports in academic journals and news outlets

Comparing Travel Behavior and Opportunities to Increase Transportation Sustainability in Small Cities, Towns and Rural Communities

The vast majority of travel behavior and sustainable transportation research has focused on urban areas. A rural perspective is lacking. This paper aims to dive deeper into understanding how people travel and their perceptions and opinions about various components of travel in a majority rural state. By speaking directly with Vermonters through in-person interviews, uniquely personal points of view were discovered and analyzed to find commonalities and differences between urban, suburban, and rural Vermonters. Questions on day-to-day challenges of traveling, suggestions for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, responses to fuel prices, and opinions on electric vehicles were asked. Some key findings were illuminated over the interview and analysis processes. Rural areas struggle most with traveling long distances to reach services, while urban areas are more concerned with traffic, opinions on EV ownership were consistent across the state, with people being likely to consider owning an EV if costs of ownership were to decrease. These interviews highlighted additional questions that need to be answered so that states can develop practical and effective policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions in rural areas. Further in-depth surveys are recommended coming out of this study so that a more complete picture of potential behavioral shifts can be attained. A reduction in GHG emissions is paramount to the world’s survival and this research will add to the body of knowledge in a historically understudied population so that we can work more closely with small and rural communities to help combat climate change through widespread emission reduction

Understanding Statistics and Experimental Design

This open access textbook provides the background needed to correctly use, interpret and understand statistics and statistical data in diverse settings. Part I makes key concepts in statistics readily clear. Parts I and II give an overview of the most common tests (t-test, ANOVA, correlations) and work out their statistical principles. Part III provides insight into meta-statistics (statistics of statistics) and demonstrates why experiments often do not replicate. Finally, the textbook shows how complex statistics can be avoided by using clever experimental design. Both non-scientists and students in Biology, Biomedicine and Engineering will benefit from the book by learning the statistical basis of scientific claims and by discovering ways to evaluate the quality of scientific reports in academic journals and news outlets

Spatial Buckling Behavior of High-rise Rack Frames

The paper investigates the global elastic buckling behavior of a high-rise adjustable pallet rack frame composed of thin-walled open sections. It is concluded that the simple element used in many commercial programs for 3D frame analysis is not sufficiently refined for accurate linear buckling analyses of high-rise rack frames

On fine differentiability properties of horizons and applications to Riemannian geometry

We study fine differentiability properties of horizons. We show that the set of end points of generators of a n-dimensional horizon H (which is included in a (n+1)-dimensional space-time M) has vanishing n-dimensional Hausdorff measure. This is proved by showing that the set of end points of generators at which the horizon is differentiable has the same property. For 1\le k\le n+1 we show (using deep results of Alberti) that the set of points where the convex hull of the set of generators leaving the horizon has dimension k is ``almost a C^2 manifold of dimension n+1-k'': it can be covered, up to a set of vanishing (n+1-k)-dimensional Hausdorff measure, by a countable number of C^2 manifolds. We use our Lorentzian geometry results to derive information about the fine differentiability properties of the distance function and the structure of cut loci in Riemannian geometry.Comment: Latex2e, 13 pages in A4 forma