Beyond orality and literacy : reclaiming the sensorium for composition studies

In this dissertation I conduct a historical and theoretical reexamination of Walter Ong in order to explore the extent to which technology transforms consciousness. I discover within his work an understanding of literacy, technology, and humanity that can help us negotiate change without succumbing to the teleological urge to dichotomize. Technology transforms consciousness, but consciousness also transforms technology. This relational aspect of evolutionary change, which is essential to Ong’s work, is often missed or misread. The misreadings obscure important concepts in Ong’s work that can help us negotiate questions that occupy our own present and near-future. How do we teach writing in the presence of technology? What is literacy becoming and how can we understand the increasing multiplicity? Are our students being transformed by the latest technologies? Ong’s work offers answers in a somewhat unexpected way. Rather than continuing or redefining the orality, literacy, secondary orality continuum, I demonstrate that Ong’s work is grounded in more relevant concepts that should no longer be overlooked. A deeper understanding of “the word,” “interior,” and “presence” leads to the revelation that understanding “noetic economy” and “sensorium” not only clarifies Ong’s work, but also offers tools for transforming pedagogy, understanding literacies, and advancing historical understandings. Ong’s work is an enactment of scholarship within the sensorium. That enactment was somewhat unconscious; he did not always articulate the interaction of aural, oral, visual, kinesthetic, olfactory, and tactile, but merely referred to the human sensorium to explain the interactions of the physical and intellectual aspects of human existence. This recovery of Ong’s work demonstrates our need for conscious enactment of the sensorium. One such enactment includes rereading Alexander Bain, who failed to respond to the shifts in the human sensorium occurring alongside developments in writing technologies. Changes in the noetic economy shifted invention away from oral and memory-based composition towards visual and kinesthetically-enacted shaping and revising of ideas. Bain’s assumption that ideas come fully formed from the mind, shared with his students, became reified in current traditional pedagogy. Enacting the sensorium offers us an opportunity to avoid passing on problematic pedagogy to our own students.Department of EnglishWalter Ong's reception in English studies -- Speaking of changes, or, "How the divide is not so great" -- Before orality and literacy : earlier explorations in Walter Ong's thought -- The (not so) great divide : recalling the sensorium -- Applications.Thesis (Ph. D.

Dilation kinetics of glassy, aromatic polyimides induced by carbon dioxide sorption

Over the past years, the equilibrium sorption of gases in polymers has been intensively studied. Mostly, glassy polymers were investigated because of their excellent selective mass transport properties. This work does not focus on the equilibrium sorption but on the kinetics to reach the equilibrium. We developed a new experimental method measuring the sorption-induced dilation kinetics of a polymer film. Carbon dioxide and glassy, aromatic polyimides were chosen as model systems. Low-pressure experiments demonstrate that the measured dilation kinetics represent the sorption kinetics. A significant delay between the sorption and dilation kinetics is based on the fact that dilation kinetics occurs simultaneously with the concentration increase in the center of the polymer film. High-pressure experiments reveal significant differences in dilation kinetics compared to low-pressure experiments. Generally, three regimes can be distinguished in the dilation kinetics: a first, fast volume increase followed by two much slower regimes of volume increase. The magnitude of fast and slow dilation kinetics strongly depends on the swelling history of the polymer sample. The results of the experiments are analyzed in the light of a model relating the fast dilation kinetics to a reversible Fickian dilation and the slower dilation kinetics to an irreversible, relaxational dilation

A bridge between the single-photon and squeezed-vacuum state

The two modes of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen quadrature entangled state generated by parametric down-conversion interfere on a beam splitter of variable splitting ratio. Detection of a photon in one of the beam splitter output channels heralds preparation of a signal state in the other, which is characterized using homodyne tomography. By controlling the beam splitting ratio, the signal state can be chosen anywhere between the single-photon and squeezed state

Adjusting a Railway Timetable in case of Partial or Complete Blockades

Unexpected events, such as accidents or track damages, can have a significant impact on the railway system so that trains need to be canceled and delayed. In case of a disruption it is important that dispatchers quickly present a good solution in order to minimize the nuisance for the passengers. In this paper, we focus on adjusting the timetable of a passenger railway operator in case of major disruptions. Both a partial and a complete blockade of a railway line are considered. Given a disrupted infrastructure situation and a forecast of the characteristics of the disruption, our goal is to determine a disposition timetable, specifying which trains will still be operated during the disruption and determining the timetable of these trains. Without explicitly taking the rolling stock rescheduling problem into account, we develop our models such that the probability that feasible solutions to this problem exists, is high. The main objective is to maximize the service level offered to the passengers. We present integer programming formulations and test our models using instances from Netherlands Railways

Spin Relaxation in Graphene with self-assembled Cobalt Porphyrin Molecules

In graphene spintronics, interaction of localized magnetic moments with the electron spins paves a new way to explore the underlying spin relaxation mechanism. A self-assembled layer of organic cobalt-porphyrin (CoPP) molecules on graphene provides a desired platform for such studies via the magnetic moments of porphyrin-bound cobalt atoms. In this work a study of spin transport properties of graphene spin-valve devices functionalized with such CoPP molecules as a function of temperature via non-local spin-valve and Hanle spin precession measurements is reported. For the functionalized (molecular) devices, we observe a slight decrease in the spin relaxation time ({\tau}s), which could be an indication of enhanced spin-flip scattering of the electron spins in graphene in the presence of the molecular magnetic moments. The effect of the molecular layer is masked for low quality samples (low mobility), possibly due to dominance of Elliot-Yafet (EY) type spin relaxation mechanisms

Scheduling Movements in the Network of an Express Service Provider

Express service providers manage shipments from senders to receivers under strict service level agreements. Such shipments are usually not sufficient to justify a single transportation, so it is preferred to maximize consolidation of these shipments to reduce cost. The consolidation is organized via depots and hubs: depots are local sorting centers that take care of the collection and delivery of the parcels at the customers, and hubs are used to consolidate the transportation between the depots. A single transportation between two locations, carried out by a certain vehicle at a specific time, is defined as a movement. In this paper, we address the problem of scheduling all movements in an express network at minimum cost. Our approach allows to impose restrictions on the number of arriving/departing movements at the hubs so that sufficient handling capacity is ensured. As the movement scheduling problem is complex, it is divided into two parts: one part concerns the movements between depots and hubs; the other part considers the movements between the hubs. We use a column generation approach and a local search algorithm to solve these two subproblems, respectively. Computational experiments show that by using this approach the total transportation costs are decreased

Modeling and analysis of a hysteretic deformable mirror with electrically coupled actuators

In this paper, we present our novel concept of deformable mirror which enables a high density 2D actuation array through multiplexing. We investigate the resulting electrical coupling effect in the neighboring actuators through finite element analysis. These insights are used to consider the behavior within the least-square fitting performed to achieve wavefront error corrections

Higher Education Policy: The Evolution of a Journal Revisited

This paper reflects on the contributions to the journal Higher Education Policy, celebrating its twenty-fifth birthday. It describes and analyses the themes addressed by the authors and the institutional background of the 1,172 contributors to the 812 papers. The analysis confirms the focus of the journal on higher education policy, governance and management, and its truly international character with contributions from across the globe on issues at stake in a vast range of countries and institutions. In addition, the paper analyses patterns regarding highly cited contributions to the journal and closes with words of thanks and recommendations for those intending to submit a paper to the journal

A novel alphaherpesvirus and concurrent respiratory cryptococcosis in a captive koala (Phascolarctos cinereus)

A novel alphaherpesvirus was detected in a captive adult, lactating, female koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) admitted to James Cook University Veterinary Emergency Teaching & Clinical Hospital in March 2019, showing signs of anorexia and severe respiratory disease. Postmortem examination revealed gross pathology indicative of pneumonia. Histopathology demonstrated a chronic interstitial pneumonia, multifocal necrotising adrenalitis and hepatitis. Intranuclear inclusion bodies were detected by light microscopy in the respiratory epithelium of the bronchi, bronchioles, alveoli, and hepatocytes, biliary epithelium and adrenal gland associated with foci of necrosis. Cryptococcus gattii was isolated from fresh lung on necropsy, positively identified by PCR, and detected histologically by light microscopy, only in the lung tissue. A universal viral family-level PCR indicated that the virus was a member of the Herpesviruses. Sequence analysis in comparison to other known and published herpesviruses, indicated the virus was a novel alphaherpesvirus, with 97% nucleotide identity to macropodid alphaherpesvirus 1. We provisionally name the novel virus phascolarctid alphaherpesvirus 3 (PhaHV-3). Further research is needed to determine the distribution of this novel alphaherpesvirus in koala populations and establish associations with disease in this host species