"Seduced and Abandoned Over and Over and Over": A Feminist Semiotic Narrative Analysis of the Films of James Toback

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)In this thesis, feminist semiotic narrative methodology is applied to James Toback’s films Love & Money, Exposed, Tyson, and Seduced and Abandoned, in order to illuminate his construction of womanhood and women’s sexuality. In each film, Toback served as writer, director, and producer, giving him total creative and business control. Due to this lack of outside oversight, these four specific films are most likely to directly reflect Toback’s perspective as a filmmaker. This study employs narrative-based semiotic criticism, expanding the work of Walter Fisher and Teresa de Lauretis, to identify how Toback’s creation of world, gaze, object/subject, and desire, construct womanhood and women’s sexuality. Toback’s creation of illusory worlds emphasizes that while superficial beauty qualifies a woman as a sexual commodity for men, sex will ultimately be women’s downfall

Extended Techniques and Electronic Enhancements: A Study of Works by Ian Clarke

British flutist Ian Clarke is a leading performer and composer in the flute world. His works have been performed internationally and have been used in competitions given by the National Flute Association and the British Flute Society. Clarke’s compositions are also referenced in the Peters Edition of the Edexcel GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) Anthology of Music as examples of extended techniques. The significance of Clarke’s works lies in his unique compositional style. His music features sounds and styles that one would not expect to hear from a flute and have elements that appeal to performers and broader audiences alike. Clarke is helping to usher in a new era in flute literature by creating works for the more advanced performer which employ extended techniques, pop, blues and electronics to create a distinct sound. Meanwhile, his well-defined notational style and clear melodies appeal to relatively inexperienced players who find the works more accessible and entertaining to play. This document will propose a new approach to performance practice using “Electronic Enhancements” to add to and alter the sound of the flute to create distinct and unusual effects. Included in this discussion will be the use of guitar and vocal pedal effects. Although Clarke does not use these electronic effects, he encourages such experimentation. I will further discuss other aspects of playing with electronics, including different types of microphones that could be used with these types of effects, monitors, amplifiers, and mixers and how these components function in an entire set up, and how they may be applied to Clarke’s music

Wound-Dressers and House Calls: Medical Representations in Whitman and Williams

Examines Whitman\u27s attitudes toward wounded bodies and argues that "dressing a wound, and writing a poem about dressing a wound (are) equivalent acts in Whitman\u27s imagination"; compares Whitman\u27s emphasis on the "rescuing" function of poetry to William Carlos Williams\u27 emphasis on "defamiliarization" of habits of perception of the body in Spring and All

Capturing what and why in healthcare innovation

Funding: Dr Davis’ time was funded from a collaborative project between University of Dundee; Tayside Academic Health Sciences Partnership; Medtronic; Scottish Enterprise; National Centre for Universities and Business.Understandings of innovation usually encompass multiple overlapping aspects, putting innovation terminology at risk of vagueness and overuse. However, innovation concepts are expected to remain powerful and useful in healthcare beyond the pandemic and into the future, so clarity will be helpful for effective leadership. To disentangle and disambiguate meanings within innovation, we offer a framework that captures and simplifies foundational substance within innovation concepts. Our method is an overview review of innovation literature from the 5 years preceding COVID-19. 51 sources were sampled and analysed for explicit definitions of healthcare innovation. Drawing on broad themes suggested from previous reviews, and gathering specific themes emergent from this literary dataset, we focused on categorising the nature of innovations (the what) and reasons given for them (the why). We identified 4 categories of what (ideas, artefacts, practice/process and structure) and 10 categories of why (economic value, practical value, experience, resource use, equity/accessibility, sustainability, behaviour change, specific-problem solving, self-justifying renewal and improved health). These categories reflect contrasting priorities and values, but do not substantially interfere or occlude each other. They can freely be additively combined to create composite definitions. This conceptual scheme affords insight and clarity for creating precise meanings, and making critical sense of imprecision, around innovation. Improved communication and clear shared understandings around innovative intentions, policies and practices cannot but improve the chances of enhanced outcomes. The all-inclusive character of this scheme leaves space for considering the limits of innovation, and notwithstanding well-established critiques, provides a basis for clarity in ongoing usage.PostprintPeer reviewe

A meta-analysis of pharmacotherapy for social anxiety disorder: an examination of efficacy, moderators, and mediators

INTRODUCTION: Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is among the most prevalent mental disorders, associated with impaired functioning and poor quality of life. Pharmacotherapy is the most widely utilized treatment option. The current study provides an updated meta-analytic review of the efficacy of pharmacotherapy and examines moderators and mediators of treatment efficacy. Areas Covered: A comprehensive search of the current literature yielded 52 randomized, pill placebo-controlled trials of pharmacotherapy for adults diagnosed with SAD. Data on potential mediators of treatment outcome were collected, as well as data necessary to calculate pooled correlation matrices to compute indirect effects. Expert Opinion: The overall effect size of pharmacotherapy for SAD is small to medium (Hedges' g = 0.41). Effect sizes were not moderated by age, sex, length of treatment, initial severity, risk of study bias, or publication year. Furthermore, reductions in symptoms mediated pharmacotherapy's effect on quality of life. Support was found for reverse mediation. Future directions may include sustained efforts to examine treatment mechanisms of pharmacotherapy using rigorous longitudinal methodology to better establish temporal precedence

An Analytic Model for Blue Straggler Formation in Globular Clusters

We present an analytic model for blue straggler formation in globular clusters. We assume that blue stragglers are formed only through stellar collisions and binary star evolution, and compare our predictions to observed blue straggler numbers taken from the catalogue of Leigh, Sills & Knigge (2011). We can summarize our key results as follows: (1) Binary star evolution consistently dominates blue straggler production in all our best-fitting models. (2) In order to account for the observed sub-linear dependence of blue straggler numbers on the core masses (Knigge, Leigh & Sills 2009), the core binary fraction must be inversely proportional to the total cluster luminosity and should always exceed at least a few percent. (3) In at least some clusters, blue straggler formation must be enhanced by dynamical encounters (either via direct collisions or by stimulating mass-transfer to occur by altering the distribution of binary orbital parameters) relative to what is expected by assuming a simple population of binaries evolving in isolation. (4) The agreement between the predictions of our model and the observations can be improved by including blue stragglers that form outside the core but later migrate in due to dynamical friction. (5) Longer blue straggler lifetimes are preferred in models that include blue stragglers formed outside the core since this increases the fraction that will have sufficient time to migrate in via dynamical friction.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Investigation of Seismic Excitation as a Method for Flow Enhancement in Porous Media

The concept of using dynamic excitation to enhance fluid flow in a porous medium began to arise in the mid-twentieth century. The initial spark of interest in the subject spurred numerous laboratory investigations throughout the latter half of the twentieth century to identify the mechanisms at work, and to develop field techniques for practical application of the technology. Several prominent laboratory and field studies have been published; however, there are some deficiencies that facilitate the need for further investigation. Groundwater flow and soil dynamics are two distinct areas of research. There is little in common between the two subjects and there is no consideration of soil dynamic properties in any of the reviewed papers. This study will attempt to bridge the gap between these two areas of research. The objective of this research is to attempt to determine how dynamic excitation of a soil matrix affects saturated single-phase fluid flow. This question is investigated through an extensive literature review of previous studies conducted on this topic, as well as through experimentation designed to replicate the mechanisms responsible for this phenomenon. Experimentation on coarse soil samples is conducted using a modified Stokoe-type resonant column device that allows a quantification of the effects of torsional and axial excitation, frequency of vibration, and strain level. This type of testing in the both the torsional and axial mode has never been conducted before using a resonant column; the Poisson ratios computed using the complimentary data has never been published in the literature

Torsion and the Gravity Dual of Parity Symmetry Breaking in AdS4/CFT3 Holography

We study four dimensional gravity with a negative cosmological constant deformed by the Nieh-Yan torsional topological invariant with a spacetime-dependent coefficient. We find an exact solution of the Euclidean system, which we call the torsion vortex, having two asymptotic AdS4 regimes supported by a pseudoscalar with a kink profile. We propose that the torsion vortex is the holographic dual of a three dimensional system that exhibits distinct parity breaking vacua. The torsion vortex represents a (holographic) transition between these distinct vacua. We expect that from the boundary point of view, the torsion vortex represents a `domain wall' between the two distinct vacua. From a bulk point of view, we point out an intriguing identification of the parameters of the torsion vortex with those of an Abrikosov vortex in a Type I superconductor. Following the analogy, we find that external Kalb-Ramond flux then appears to support bubbles of flat spacetime within an asymptotically AdS geometry.Comment: 26 pages, 4 figures; v2: minor improvements, references adde

The Influence of the Agricultural Cluster on the Fayette County Economy

From the executive summary: The project contains multiple studies that use different methods and information sources to gain a more complete picture of a complex topic. The studies contained in this report are: I. Economic Impact of Agriculture in Fayette County, Kentucky II. Interviews with Fayette County Business Leaders III. The Impact of Equine Sales and Horse Racing Facilities on Non-Agricultural Industries The purpose of the project is to gather evidence useful in guiding local policies and economic development strategies