Leviathan and Automaton: Technology and Teleology in American Literature

This dissertation examines the relationship between time and technology in American literature in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It focuses principally on the work of Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, William Faulkner and Ralph Ellison, in the context of various historical and philosophical accounts of technology. It begins with the Leo Marx's analysis of American literature as being always concerned with the moment when the machine violently enters into the garden. The dominant American concept of technology asserts that technology is progress (which is not the same as endorsing technological progress); in Richard Heilbroner's classic formulation, "machines make history." This teleological drive within technology is ultimately eschatological: the world and the very self stand in peril of being turned into automatons. Whether or not the eschatos ends with the automation or liberation of the self, the internal teleological drive of technology threatens to end time, that is, the continuation of meaningful events, something which the mainstream of American literary criticism has failed to grasp, by focusing on technology as a contemporary crisis, rather than analyzing it as being constitutive of life itself. That is, attempts to resist technological eschatologies typically end up becoming technological eschatologies themselves, with Leo Marx serving as the perfect example. An important tradition within American literature, however, has articulated an anti-teleological, anti-eschatological account of technology, one which denies the reality of progress in favor of change. This tradition includes the works of Herman Melville (including Moby Dick, Typee, Omoo, the Confidence Man and Clarel) and Ralph Ellison (Invisible Man and the essays, collected and uncollected), with William Faulkner's works (especially Light in August, the Snopes books, Absalom, Absalom and Pylon) being more ambiguously included in this tradition. Lewis Mumford, in opposition to the mainstream of literary criticism, which has always endorsed an eschatological vision of technology, eventually approached Melville and Ellison's anti-eschatological position. These works present a vision which is a viable alternative to both "progressive" ideologies which advance the mechanization of humanity and reactionary anti-technological ideologies. The dissertation argues that the Ellisonian-Melvillean anti-eschatological vision of technology precedes and is related to the critiques of progress advanced by certain contemporary theorists of biology and historians of technology, including George Basilla, Arnold Pacey, Richard Lewontin and Stephen Gould, and that this unified rejection of the very idea of progress is intellectually necessary and politically desirable. The dissertation identifies and participates in a critique not of the desirability of American progress so much as of the reality of American progress, and of the complicity of American ideologies of progress with racist traditions

Enhancing the comparability of costing methods: cross-country variability in the prices of non-traded inputs to health programmes

BACKGROUND: National and international policy makers have been increasing their focus on developing strategies to enable poor countries achieve the millennium development goals. This requires information on the costs of different types of health interventions and the resources needed to scale them up, either singly or in combinations. Cost data also guides decisions about the most appropriate mix of interventions in different settings, in view of the increasing, but still limited, resources available to improve health. Many cost and cost-effectiveness studies include only the costs incurred at the point of delivery to beneficiaries, omitting those incurred at other levels of the system such as administration, media, training and overall management. The few studies that have measured them directly suggest that they can sometimes account for a substantial proportion of total costs, so that their omission can result in biased estimates of the resources needed to run a programme or the relative cost-effectiveness of different choices. However, prices of different inputs used in the production of health interventions can vary substantially within a country. Basing cost estimates on a single price observation runs the risk that the results are based on an outlier observation rather than the typical costs of the input. METHODS: We first explore the determinants of the observed variation in the prices of selected "non-traded" intermediate inputs to health programmes – printed matter and media advertising, and water and electricity – accounting for variation within and across countries. We then use the estimated relationship to impute average prices for countries where limited data are available with uncertainty intervals. RESULTS: Prices vary across countries with GDP per capita and a number of determinants of supply and demand. Media and printing were inelastic with respect to GDP per capita, with a positive correlation, while the utilities had a surprisingly negative relationship. All equations had relatively good fits with the data. CONCLUSION: While the preferred option is to derive costs from a random sample of prices in each setting, this option is often not available to analysts. In this case, we suggest that the approach described in this paper could represent a better option than basing policy recommendations on results that are built on the basis of a single, or a few, price observations

The enigmatic black bird’s poem and its performance in William Mkufya’s Ziraili na Zirani

This paper applies a post-structuralist literary framework when looking at the philosophical implications of William’s Mkufya’s novel Ziraili na Zirani. The analysis focuses on a free-verse poem per-formed by a black bird in hell. Moreover, there is a focus on the different genre forms at play, such as free-verse poetry and the novel, and an acknowledgement that an understanding of the text relies upon a consideration of these different genre conventions. Ultimately the paper shows how a reading of the text as it is presented in the novel, as a performance, demonstrates a realisation of the different genre conventions at play, thus taking their significance onto a different plain of analysis. Furthermore, attention is drawn to the application of a post-structuralist framework and the various contributions this theoretical model can make to a reading of the poem, notably an emphasis on the resistance to fixed meaning in favour of instability. This results in an exposition of the relevance of a post-structuralist literary framework to Mkufya’s critical reflection upon epistemology as it is portrayed in the black bird’s enigmatic performance, and the novel as a whole

Computational Fluid Dynamic Modelling and Optimisation of Internal Twist-Drill Coolant Channel Flow

Due to the increasingly challenging thermal loads during drilling applications, coolant application is prevalent in twist-drill machining of metals. However, because the cutting zone is not directly observable, there is limited knowledge encompassing the distribution of coolant during the cutting process. This work looks to expand current knowledge of coolant delivery during the cutting process and inform future tool design through the application of numerical methods. This is implemented in the form of two numerical models: a through-tool model, which examines internal coolant flow and the second model which calculates coolant exit flow behaviour. The through-tool model employs a single phase model and is used to perform a parametric study which identifies the influence of each design parameter on the delivery of coolant. In addition to this metamodelling techniques are adopted to give a global overview of tool parameter effects on coolant delivery and to identify optimal channel configurations. The coolant exit flow model employs the Volume of Fluid method to simulate the multiphase exit flow of coolant and is validated against experimental data for a simplified case. This model was used to evaluate coolant exit flow for four different coolant channel configurations and study the influence of channel configuration parameters on domain flooding, surface wetting and flow field features

Achieving the WHO/UNAIDS antiretroviral treatment 3 by 5 goal: what will it cost?

The "3 by 5" goal to have 3 million people in low and middle income countries on antiretroviral therapy (ART) by the end of 2005 is ambitious. Estimates of the necessary resources are needed to facilitate resource mobilisation and rapid channelling of funds to where they are required. We estimated the financial costs needed to implement treatment protocols, by use of country-specific estimates for 34 countries that account for 90% of the need for ART in resource-poor settings. We first estimated the number of people needing ART and supporting programmes for each country. We then estimated the cost per patient for each programme by country to derive total costs. We estimate that between US5.1 billion dollars and US5.9 billion dollars will be needed by the end of 2005 to provide ART, support programmes, and cover country-level administrative and logistic costs for 3 by 5

Acceptance and commitment therapy for symptom interference in metastatic breast cancer patients: a pilot randomized trial

PURPOSE: Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer mortality in women worldwide. With medical advances, metastatic breast cancer (MBC) patients often live for years with many symptoms that interfere with activities. However, there is a paucity of efficacious interventions to address symptom-related suffering and functional interference. Thus, this study examined the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of telephone-based acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) for symptom interference with functioning in MBC patients. METHODS: Symptomatic MBC patients (N = 47) were randomly assigned to six telephone sessions of ACT or six telephone sessions of education/support. Patients completed measures of symptom interference and measures assessing the severity of pain, fatigue, sleep disturbance, depressive symptoms, and anxiety. RESULTS: The eligibility screening rate (64%) and high retention (83% at 8 weeks post-baseline) demonstrated feasibility. When examining within-group change, ACT participants showed decreases in symptom interference (i.e., fatigue interference and sleep-related impairment; Cohen's d range = - 0.23 to - 0.31) at 8 and 12 weeks post-baseline, whereas education/support participants showed minimal change in these outcomes (d range = - 0.03 to 0.07). Additionally, at 12 weeks post-baseline, ACT participants showed moderate decreases in fatigue and sleep disturbance (both ds = - 0.43), whereas education/support participants showed small decreases in these outcomes (ds = - 0.24 and - 0.18 for fatigue and sleep disturbance, respectively). Both the ACT and education/support groups showed reductions in depressive symptoms (ds = - 0.27 and - 0.28) at 12 weeks post-baseline. Group differences in all outcomes were not statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS: ACT shows feasibility and promise in improving fatigue and sleep-related outcomes in MBC patients and warrants further investigation

Thermal Emission and Tidal Heating of the Heavy and Eccentric Planet XO-3b

We determined the flux ratios of the heavy and eccentric planet XO-3b to its parent star in the four IRAC bands of the Spitzer Space Telescope: 0.101% +- 0.004% at 3.6 micron; 0.143% +- 0.006% at 4.5 micron; 0.134% +- 0.049% at 5.8 micron and 0.150% +- 0.036% at 8.0 micron. The flux ratios are within [-2.2,0.3, -0.8, -1.7]-sigma of the model of XO-3b with a thermally inverted stratosphere in the 3.6 micron, 4.5 micron, 5.8 micron and 8.0 micron channels, respectively. XO-3b has a high illumination from its parent star (Fp ~(1.9 - 4.2) x 10^9 ergs cm^-2 s^-1) and is thus expected to have a thermal inversion, which we indeed observe. When combined with existing data for other planets, the correlation between the presence of an atmospheric temperature inversion and the substellar flux is insufficient to explain why some high insolation planets like TrES-3 do not have stratospheric inversions and some low insolation planets like XO-1b do have inversions. Secondary factors such as sulfur chemistry, atmospheric metallicity, amounts of macroscopic mixing in the stratosphere or even dynamical weather effects likely play a role. Using the secondary eclipse timing centroids we determined the orbital eccentricity of XO-3b as e = 0.277 +- 0.009. The model radius-age trajectories for XO-3b imply that at least some amount of tidal-heating is required to inflate the radius of XO-3b, and the tidal heating parameter of the planet is constrained to Qp < 10^6 .Comment: Accepted for publications in The Astrophysical Journa