482 research outputs found

    Man makes man : a study of uplifting and upbuilding in the novels of Joseph Furphy

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    In a letter to Kate Baker, circa November 1910, Furphy wrote, \u27[b]ut ain\u27t it anomalous that the erratic G.H [Grant Hervey], the saintly Dr. Strong, and the perverse T.C. [Tom Collins] should be working strenuously toward the same goal, namely, the uplifting and upbuildlng of Australia\u27 (In Barnes and Hoffmann, eds, 1995:259. My Italics). This thesis is an Investigation of the ideas of uplifting and upbuildlng, and their relevance to Tom Collins and his concerns. The reason for Furphy waiting so long to lay bare his designs can only be speculated. Rather than accepting the general critical stance that Collins is unreliable, and that Furphy meticulously sets out to expose his flaws, this thesis argues that this is not the case. Since he distanced himself publicly from his own novels, refusing to have authorship credited to his name, Furphy wanted his readers to respond to Collins not as his literary creation, but as a fully developed and self-reliant identity capable of setting an example of what it means to uplift and upbuild a national community. The ideas of uplifting and upbuilding are simple enough to comprehend. Yet a proper appreciation of their scope in the novels requires a careful consideration of the historical context which links Collins to many issues of the 1880s. The chief issue is the textual construction of an Australian identity vis-á-vis an Anglo-Australian identity, and the Influence literature has on the common mind. Because of his Involvement with uplifting, upbuilding and self-reliance, there is a complexity to Tom Collins that is the result of his being the implied author, controlling the selection of characters and their narratives, as well as his own self-image, in the novels. The thesis argues that Collins\u27 representation of Collins , and other characters in the Riverina, is designed to represent the right qualities for an Australian character or type, which is consistent with uplifting and upbuilding. For these reasons, the novels are considered as Collins\u27 strategic response to the contemporary representations of life in terms of their value to the search for meaning, and to ways of seeing and responding to the good of an Australian life. Indeed, the character of Tom Collins is very much concerned with personal and communal well-being in an environment of colonial loyalties, rivalry and division, and a landscape often categorized as exotically cruel or dangerous. Because this is so, Collins is concerned with the value of education, with the value of notable Western thinkers and artists, and with the shifting of ignorance for better judgment. He is also concerned with the benefits of democracy and the democratic temper over aristocracy and its emphasis on class and station. Collins is quite a modern thinker, deeply concerned with actions and consequences in art and life. He is a modern thinker because he believes, as Paine, Emerson and Whitman do, that the idea of natural rights is the cornerstone of moral progress for civilization, but only if men and women accept and practise the civil rights that necessarily come with the pursuit of liberty, fraternity, equality and happiness

    Speaking Magic Realism: Selected short stories of Peter Carey

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    This thesis is an analysis determined by the investigative proposition, what is a magic realist speech act? Of the schools of thought available to any philosophical undertaking in literature, this thesis makes particular use of the principles of speech act theory, genre theory, and poststructuralism. With genre theory, the emphasis is on the subgeneric construction of the narrative structure, and this thesis will incorporate three short stories from Peter Carey\u27s The Fat Man in History as the most overt evidence for what the thesis is proposing to analyse and illuminate. But on the whole, readers will understand that, while the short stories analysed contribute to the specific concepts and notions of the thesis, the thesis itself is written with the purpose of being able to determine some of the conditions and indicators that make up the larger structure of subgeneric magic realism in narratives other than Carey\u27s. With speech act theory and poststructuralism, the thesis will focus essentially on the dialogue between John. R. Searle (1979) and Jacques Derrida (1979) on the work of the founder of speech act theory, John. L. Austin (1962). The impetus of that dialogue Is the distinction made, by Austin and Searle, between serious discourse, or ordinary language, and non-serious discourse, or fictional discourse. This distinction is argued to be, by speech act philosophers, a necessary condition of being able to establish a general theory of speech acts, or felicitous performances, that can be classified according to their illocutionary forces in ordinary circumstances. Derrida, however, proposes that such felicitous performances, in any circumstance, can be established if, and only if, one considers their infelicitous, or parastic, counterpart in fictional discursivity as an object of analysis to speech act theory rather than an object of exclusion. In what may generally be considered a Derridean approach, this thesis will place such an exclusive binary opposition \u27under erasure\u27 to show that the principles of speech act theory are wholly applicable to non-serious discourse and subgeneric narrative structures, which In our case is magic realism. Indeed, this thesis will take, as its point of departure, the notion that the erasure between serious and non-serious discourse is already in place, thereby allowing the argument to concentrate on the principles of speech act theory in fictional discourse as well as its wider applicability to the construction of any subgeneric act in genre theory. Finally, a considerable focus is given to the notion of closure in fictional discourse between Author Function and Reader Function. Using Carey as an example, the thesis will look at how subgenerlc magic realism foregrounds both poststructural play and narrative closure, entertaining the possibility of the two, according to the respective contexts of each condition on the quantum level and larger structure of a narrative\u27s performance. Furthermore, this possible duality of language, this aporia, is, in this thesis, held to be common to all subgenres, known and unknown to genre theory, as well as to the performances of language In both the literary and extra-literary realities

    Modelling Contamination of Raw Milk with Butyric Acid Bacteria Spores

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    Raw milk contains low concentrations of bacterial endospores, originating from the farm environment (e.g. soil, feeds, faeces). Spores of Clostridium tyrobutyricum, also called butyric acid bacterium (BAB), are of great interest to the dairy industry. They survive milk pasteurisation and cause off-flavours and texture defects in various cheese types. The contamination pathway of BAB spores is well known. Their primary origin is soil. In silage the number of spores will increase if conditions permit BAB growth. The spores are excreted in the cows faeces and are transferred to milk by contaminated teat surfaces. Many factors are involved in the contamination of milk with BAB spores. In this study, the contamination pathway was described using a combination of predictive models. The objective of the study was to quantitatively assess the importance of the different steps of the contamination pathway and to identify the most effective control points

    Recycling manure as cow bedding: potential benefits and risks for UK dairy farms

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    Material obtained from physical separation of slurry (recycled manure solids; RMS) has been used as bedding for dairy cows in dry climates in the US since the 1970s. Relatively recently, the technical ability to produce drier material has led to adoption of the practice in Europe under different climatic conditions. This review collates the evidence available on benefits and risks of using RMS bedding on dairy farms, with a European context in mind. There was less evidence than expected for anecdotal claims of improved cow comfort. Among animal health risks, only udder health has received appreciable attention. There are some circumstantial reports of difficulties of maintaining udder health on RMS, but no large scale or long term studies of effects on clinical and subclinical mastitis have been published. Existing reports do not give consistent evidence of inevitable problems, nor is there any information on clinical implications for other diseases. The scientific basis for guidelines on management of RMS bedding is limited. Decisions on optimum treatment and management may present conflicts between control of different groups of organisms. There is no information on the influence that such 'recycling' of manure may have on pathogen virulence. The possibility of influence on genetic material conveying antimicrobial resistance is a concern, but little understood. Should UK or other non-US farmers adopt RMS, they are advised to do so with caution, apply the required strategies for risk mitigation, maintain strict hygiene of bed management and milking practices and closely monitor the effects on herd health

    p-mTOR, p-ERK and PTEN Expression in Tumor Biopsies and Organoids as Predictive Biomarkers for Patients with HPV Negative Head and Neck Cancer

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    Background: Survival rates of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) have only marginally improved in the last decades. Hence there is a need for predictive biomarkers for long-time survival that can help to guide treatment decisions and might lead to the development of new therapies. The phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway is the most frequently altered pathway in HNSCC, genes are often mutated, amplificated and overexpressed causing aberrant signaling affecting cell growth and differentiation. Numerous genetic alterations of upstream and downstream factors have currently been clarified. However, their predictive value has yet to be established. Therefore we assess the predictive value of p-mTOR, p-ERK and PTEN expression. Methods: Tissue microarrays (TMA’s) of HPV-negative patients with oropharyngeal (n = 48), hypopharyngeal (n = 16) or laryngeal (n = 13) SCC, treated with primary chemoradiation (cisplatin/carboplatin/cetuximab and radiotherapy), were histologically stained for p-mTOR, PTEN and p-ERK. Expression was correlated to overall survival (OS), disease free survival (DFS) and locoregional control (LRC). Also p-mTOR was histologically stained in a separate cohort of HNSCC organoids (n = 8) and correlated to mTOR-inhibitor everolimus response. Results: High p-mTOR expression correlated significantly with worse OS in multivariate analysis in the whole patient cohort [Hazar Ratio (HR) 1.06, 95%CI 1.01–1.11, p = 0.03] and in the cisplatin/carboplatin group with both worse OS (HR 1.09, 95%CI 1.02–1.16, p = 0.02) and DFS (HR 1.06, 95%CI 1.00–1.12, p = 0,04). p-ERK expression correlated significantly with DFS in univariate analysis in the whole patient cohort (HR 1.03, 95%CI 1.00–1.05, p = 0.04) and cisplatin/carboplatin group (HR 1.03, 95%CI 1.00–1.07, p = 0.04). PTEN-expression did not correlate with OS/DFS/LRC. Better organoid response to everolimus correlated significantly to higher p-mTOR expression (Rs = − 0.731, p = 0.04). Conclusions: High p-mTOR expression predicts and high p-ERK expression tends to predict worse treatment outcome in HPV negative HNSCC patients treated with chemoradiation, providing additional evidence that these markers are candidate prognostic biomarkers for survival in this patient population. Also this study shows that the use of HNSCC organoids for biomarker research has potential. The role of PTEN expression as prognostic biomarker remains unclear, as consistent evidence on its prognostic and predictive value is lacking.</p
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