Cemeteries

The first house we bought in West Virginia was sandwiched between two cemeteries. The larger one stood behind our house and was hidden by a patch of trees, so we could see it only in the winter when the trees lost their leaves and the headstones emerged, rectangular specks visible between the bare branches. The smaller cemetery perched on top of a low hill across from our house, on the other side of the narrow, dead-end street

Life crisis and existentialism in three dramatic works

The purpose of this thesis is to provide a new approach to the existential dilemma of the self in crisis as it emerges in three modern plays. While scrutinizing how a person can remain human in a universe filled with obstacles, I show that the idea of the life crisis provides the most suitable approach to that predicament. The idea of the life crisis allows for a comprehensive approach when applied to the various quandaries that situate the shifting idea of freedom. In this thesis, the philosophical ideas of Soren Kierkegaard, John-Paul Sartre, and Albert Camus will be taken up to demonstrate the role of the life crisis in Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, and Tawfiq al-Hakim’s The Tree Climber. In focusing on the life crisis as it emerges in modern drama, I demonstrate how human identity can be better understood--and how it either becomes coherent or dissolves

Juri Lotman in Arabic: A bibliography

Juri Lotman in Arabic: A bibliograph

Studies directed toward the enantioselective addition of reformatsky reagents to aldimines

Interest in β-amino esters and β-lactams has grown significantly due to their applications in the synthesis of compounds of pharmaceutical interest. Examples include β-lactam antibiotics such as the penicillin and carbapenem families. Because β-lactams and β-amino esters share a common pathway, methods to prepare either are often contaminated and thus complicated by the formation of the other. We have developed convenient and highly controllable method which can afford either product cleanly

Studies directed toward the enantioselective addition of reformatsky reagents to aldimines

Interest in β-amino esters and β-lactams has grown significantly due to their applications in the synthesis of compounds of pharmaceutical interest. Examples include β-lactam antibiotics such as the penicillin and carbapenem families. Because β-lactams and β-amino esters share a common pathway, methods to prepare either are often contaminated and thus complicated by the formation of the other. We have developed convenient and highly controllable method which can afford either product cleanly

A tool for building distributed transactions system with XML.

The evolution of distributed transaction system has taken the dramatic but positive path towards secure atomic transactions. CORBA services plays an effective role in building distributed systems, especial service is the transactional service. CORBA Transactional service was implemented by lead software companies, companies who are striving to provide solutions to programmers, by providing developers with helping tools. Tools like Jbuilder and C++Builder ease the programmer\u27s job with implementation by reading the IDL and generating the foundation or so called the skeleton code for making it ready for further implementation by the programmer. Providing such a foundation allows the programmer to only focus on the logic. In this thesis we investigate an innovative way to use XML, as specifications language, for configuring a distributed transactions system based on existing/reusable components. We implement a tool as an interpreter for XML specifications of the transactions system which will generate smart program code; i.e. client/server programs. The generated code includes implementation code which otherwise would be the programmer\u27s responsibility to implement manually. We then test our tool in two application areas; the Bank Transfer and the Point of Sale. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis2000 .A334. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 40-03, page: 0719. Adviser: Indra Tjandra. Thesis (M.Sc.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 2001

Brainatwork: Logging Cognitive Engagement and Tasks in the Workplace Using Electroencephalography

Today's workplaces are dynamic and complex. Digital data sources such as email and video conferencing aim to support workers but also add to their burden of multitasking. Psychophysiological sensors such as Electroencephalography (EEG) can provide users with cues about their cognitive state. We introduce BrainAtWork, a workplace engagement and task logger which shows users their cognitive state while working on different tasks. In a lab study with eleven participants working on their own real-world tasks, we gathered 16 hours of EEG and PC logs which were labeled into three classes: central, peripheral and meta work. We evaluated the usability of BrainAtWork via questionnaires and interviews. We investigated the correlations between measured cognitive engagement from EEG and subjective responses from experience sampling probes. Using random forests classification, we show the feasibility of automatically labeling work tasks into work classes. We discuss how BrainAtWork can support workers on the long term through encouraging reflection and helping in task scheduling

Investigating User Needs for Bio-sensing and Affective Wearables

Bio-sensing wearables are currently advancing to provide users with a lot of information about their physiological and affective states. However, relatively little is known about users' interest in acquiring, sharing and receiving this information and through which channels and modalities. To close this gap, we report on the results of an online survey (N=109) exploring principle aspects of the design space of wearables such as data types, contexts, feedback modalities and sharing behaviors. Results show that users are interested in obtaining physiological, emotional and cognitive data through modalities beyond traditional touchscreen output. Valence of the information, whether positive or negative affects the sharing behaviors