Self and (m)other in Patrick White\u27s fiction : an object relations approach

This thesis offers a new interpretation of Patrick White\u27s novels, using Object Relations psychology. Object Relations psychology differs from Freudian psychology in that it shifts the focus of attention from notions of the Oedipal conflict and repression to issues of nurturing and relationships. This study charts the development of the Whitean protagonist across a selection of novels. The focus of my thesis is White\u27s developing protagonist, and no attempt is made to offer a psychological profile of Patrick White himself. The thesis first surveys a representative sampling of existing critical material. It then defines the theoretical framework of the study and, finally, it applies this framework to the novels

Doubling, splitting and fragmentation in Bleak House

This thesis draws mainly on psychoanalytic theories, and explicates the doubling leitmotiv in Bleak House (1971), which portrays Victorian personality as split and its society as fragmented. This is seen as a suggestion of Dickens\u27 conception of human identity as fragile and vulnerable. Each autonomous character represents a single aspect of personality, so that conflict, when it occurs, is in fact intra-psychic, rather than inter-psychic. The study investigates the problem of the dual or split personality via the quest for identity, and addresses Dickens\u27 perceived need to reward self-effacing characters and punish the assertive. It explores the psychological ramifications of the fragmented personality based on the Object Relations principles of Splitting and Reintegration, and Separation and Individuation, and peruses the realistic development of the characters within psychological parameters. It examines the possibility that, despite Dickens\u27 overt criticism of class divisions and social evils, his ascribing of traits like sexuality and violence to the lower classes, reveals his own ambivalence to class stratifications within Victorian society. The pervasive fog is a metaphor for indifferentiation between various personalities and institutions, and represents both psychic fragmentation and the erosion of law and order and meaning within institutions. The analogous relationship between classes and institutions is discussed in terms of paradigmatic divisions and syntagmatic connections. Special attention is devoted to the submerged dialectic in the dual narrative, under the broad terms of Eros, for the first person feminine narrative and Psyche, for what is considered to be the masculine, omniscient narrator, in order to understand it more fully within the Victorian context of separate spheres for the feminine and masculine, private and public. In concluding, it discusses Dickens\u27 methods of plot and conflict resolution by drawing on his credo of childhood innocence, and the parable of the domestic haven, according to his own peculiar configuration of family

Promiscuity and the Evolution of Sexual Transmitted Diseases

We study the relation between different social behaviors and the onset of epidemics in a model for the dynamics of sexual transmitted diseases. The model considers the society as a system of individual sexuated agents that can be organized in couples and interact with each other. The different social behaviors are incorporated assigning what we call a promiscuity value to each individual agent. The individual promiscuity is taken from a distributions and represents the daily probability of going out to look for a sexual partner, abandoning its eventual mate. In terms of this parameter we find a threshold for the epidemic which is much lower than the classical fully mixed model prediction, i.e. $R_0$ (basic reproductive number) $= 1$. Different forms for the distribution of the population promiscuity are considered showing that the threshold is weakly sensitive to them. We study the homosexual and the heterosexual case as well.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

A Sr-Rich Star on the Main Sequence of Omega Centauri

Abundance ratios relative to iron for carbon, nitrogen, strontium and barium are presented for a metal-rich main sequence star ([Fe/H]=--0.74) in the globular cluster omega Centauri. This star, designated 2015448, shows depleted carbon and solar nitrogen, but more interestingly, shows an enhanced abundance ratio of strontium [Sr/Fe] ~ 1.6 dex, while the barium abundance ratio is [Ba/Fe]<0.6 dex. At this metallicity one usually sees strontium and barium abundance ratios that are roughly equal. Possible formation scenarios of this peculiar object are considered.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures. Accepted to ApJ

Physical limits of inference

I show that physical devices that perform observation, prediction, or recollection share an underlying mathematical structure. I call devices with that structure "inference devices". I present a set of existence and impossibility results concerning inference devices. These results hold independent of the precise physical laws governing our universe. In a limited sense, the impossibility results establish that Laplace was wrong to claim that even in a classical, non-chaotic universe the future can be unerringly predicted, given sufficient knowledge of the present. Alternatively, these impossibility results can be viewed as a non-quantum mechanical "uncertainty principle". Next I explore the close connections between the mathematics of inference devices and of Turing Machines. In particular, the impossibility results for inference devices are similar to the Halting theorem for TM's. Furthermore, one can define an analog of Universal TM's (UTM's) for inference devices. I call those analogs "strong inference devices". I use strong inference devices to define the "inference complexity" of an inference task, which is the analog of the Kolmogorov complexity of computing a string. However no universe can contain more than one strong inference device. So whereas the Kolmogorov complexity of a string is arbitrary up to specification of the UTM, there is no such arbitrariness in the inference complexity of an inference task. I end by discussing the philosophical implications of these results, e.g., for whether the universe "is" a computer.Comment: 43 pages, updated version of Physica D version, which originally appeared in 2007 CNLS conference on unconventional computatio

Abundances on the Main Sequence of Omega Centauri

Abundance ratios of carbon, nitrogen and strontium relative to iron, calculated using spectrum synthesis techniques, are given for a sample of main sequence and turnoff stars that belong to the globular cluster omega Centauri. The variations of carbon, nitrogen and/or strontium show several different abundance patterns as a function of [Fe/H]. The source of the enhancements/depletions in carbon, nitrogen and/or strontium may be enrichment from asymptotic giant branch stars of low (1--3 solar masses) and intermediate (3--8 solar masses) mass. Massive rotating stars which produce excess nitrogen without carbon and oxygen overabundances may also play a role. These abundances enable different contributors to be considered and incorporated into the evolutionary picture of omega Cen.Comment: 43 Pages, 13 Figures. Accepted for publication in Ap

Modelling and detecting tumour oxygenation levels.

Tumours that are low in oxygen (hypoxic) tend to be more aggressive and respond less well to treatment. Knowing the spatial distribution of oxygen within a tumour could therefore play an important role in treatment planning, enabling treatment to be targeted in such a way that higher doses of radiation are given to the more radioresistant tissue. Mapping the spatial distribution of oxygen in vivo is difficult. Radioactive tracers that are sensitive to different levels of oxygen are under development and in the early stages of clinical use. The concentration of these tracer chemicals can be detected via positron emission tomography resulting in a time dependent concentration profile known as a tissue activity curve (TAC). Pharmaco-kinetic models have then been used to deduce oxygen concentration from TACs. Some such models have included the fact that the spatial distribution of oxygen is often highly inhomogeneous and some have not. We show that the oxygen distribution has little impact on the form of a TAC; it is only the mean oxygen concentration that matters. This has significant consequences both in terms of the computational power needed, and in the amount of information that can be deduced from TACs

Spatial Interaction Modeling of OD Flow Data: Comparing Geographically Weighted Negative Binomial Regression (GWNBR) and OLS (GWOLSR)

Due to the emergence of new big data technology, mobility data such as flows between origin and destination areas have increasingly become more available, cheaper, and faster. These improvements to data infrastructure have boosted spatial and temporal modeling of OD (origin-destination) flows, which require the consideration of spatial dependence and heterogeneity. Both ordinary least square (OLS) and negative binomial (NB) regression methods have been used extensively to calibrate OD flow models by processing flow data as different types of dependent variables. This paper aims to compare both global and local spatial interaction modeling of OD flows between traditional and geographically weighted OLS (GWOLSR) and NB (GWNBR) modeling methods. From this study with empirical data it is concluded that GWNBR outperforms GWOLSR in reducing spatial autocorrelation and in detecting spatial non-stationarity. Although, it is noted that both local modeling methods show improvement when compared against the equivalent global models

A Copine family member, Cpne8, is a candidate quantitative trait gene for prion disease incubation time in mouse

Prion disease incubation time in mice is determined by many factors including genetic background. The prion gene itself plays a major role in incubation time; however, other genes are also known to be important. Whilst quantitative trait loci (QTL) studies have identified multiple loci across the genome, these regions are often large, and with the exception of Hectd2 on Mmu19, no quantitative trait genes or nucleotides for prion disease incubation time have been demonstrated. In this study, we use the Northport heterogeneous stock of mice to reduce the size of a previously identified QTL on Mmu15 from approximately 25 to 1.2 cM. We further characterised the genes in this region and identify Cpne8, a member of the copine family, as the most promising candidate gene. We also show that Cpne8 mRNA is upregulated at the terminal stage of disease, supporting a role in prion disease. Applying these techniques to other loci will facilitate the identification of key pathways in prion disease pathogenesis