“Ghosts within us”: a study of women writers of gothic modernism

This thesis offers a reading of Modernist narratives by British women writers through Gothic lens. The ostensible archaic mode of the Gothic that Modernism endeavoured to throw away returns from the repressed to haunt Modernist fiction. Women writers that this thesis examines, show the importance of this writing mode. Through its elastic elements, the Gothic continues to live in the early twentieth century. This thesis shows how women writers adapt Gothic tropes to engage with their own and their age’s anxieties between the fin de siècle and the 1930s. This study shows how the Gothic communicates historical and gender concerns from women’s perspective with the aim to establish a women’s voice within the field of Gothic Modernism. The Gothic, in the works of Vernon Lee, E. Nesbit, May Sinclair, Virginia Woolf, Rebecca West, Daphne du Maurier and Jean Rhys, evolves and responds. This means that the Gothic transforms from the fin de siècle to become more psychological in later works of these writers from the 1910s to the inter-war period. In other words, the Gothic evolves as it responds to the varying anxieties, affecting women across these periods. This thesis aims to add a unified study of Modernist women writers to the field of Gothic Modernism. By unified, I mean that this study produces a sense of the continuity to the Gothic. It highlights the Gothic’s revival in the 1890s and its subsequent re-invention in the Modernist period at the hands of Modernist women writers

A Sulphur Isotope Study of the Caledonian Granites of Britain and Ireland

The Caledonian fold belt is thought to have formed as a result of the closure of the 'Iapetus' ocean basin during Lower Palaeozoic times. Granitic magmas were intruded into Precambrian and Lower Palaeozoic country rocks between approximately 640 and 390 Ma. Most important, spatially and volumetrically, are the late Caledonian granites, the 'Newer' and 'Last' granites of Read (1961). In general, the late Caledonian granites have the calc-alkaline characteristics typical of plutonic rocks emplaced at destructive plate margins. They range in composition from diorite and tonalite, through granodiorite, to peraluminous granite with chemical variation continuous among the various rock types. Petrographically and chemically, the granitoids span the range from S 'sedimentary' to I 'igneous' types as defined by Chappell and White (1974) with no discernible geographical pattern to their distribution. There have been few sulphur isotope studies on primary sulphides in granites; yet such data have considerable potential in understanding the petrogenesis; that is in terms of granites derived either from igneous or metasedimentary protoliths. From about 50 British and Irish Caledonide granites, including both 'Newer' and 'Older' intrustions, conventional separation techniques have yielded sulphide separates from only 19 granites for delta34S analyses. Mineralogically, the sulphides consist of mainly pyrite and pyrrhotite, although chalco-pyrite is present in a few intrusions. It was noticeable that granites with high delta18O and high initial 87Sr/86Sr yielded very little sulphides. S analyses proved most informative when compared with the following: mol Al2O3/(CaO + Na2O + K2O) , K/Na, Fe2O3/FeO ratios, initial 87Sr/86Sr and delta18O. Granites with high to intermediate delta18O (11 to 10%) and high initial 87Sr/86Sr (> 0.709) are accompanied by g 34S from +5.0 to +16.0%. and are indicative of crustally derived granites (S-types). These are mainly 'Older' Caledonian granites (e.g. the Oughterard granite and the Cashel microgranite sill in Connemara, Ireland; the Aberdeen granite in Scotland). Intermediate to low delta18O (10 to 6%.) and low initial 87Sr/ 86Sr (0.703 to 0.708) correspond to delta34S values between -4.5%. and +4.4%. indicative of granites derived from the mantle or lower crust; these intrusions are mainly 'Newer' Caledonian granites. delta34S analyses also confirm the diverse protolithic derivation of zoned granites; a good example being the Strontian granite in the northwest Highlands of Scotland with a variety delta34S value of -0.1%. and, therefore, considered to be derived from a basic igneous protolith, and a more leucocratic member showing a spread delta34S values between +5.5 and +8.4%. which is considered to be derived from a crustal component. Sulphur isotope analyses of coexisting sulphide minerals are also useful as a geothermometer as long as the sulphide-bearing phases are in equilibrium. The putative temperature of formation of two coexisting mineral pairs from the Oughterard granite has been calculated; 41

Cultural Landscapes Preservation at the Interface of Urban Planning and Sprawl

From ancient times, the sea has played a key role in shaping and generating settlements and cities. The history of civilizations has been marked by the cultural development of human societies along coastlines. Accordingly, these territories are harbor of an important coastal heritage; that plays a pivotal role in maintaining the link between the past and the future. In fact, while cities grow and their populations increase, their planning becomes a challenge for sustainable development. Through different forms and mechanisms, coastal sprawl is materialized, by the massive occupation of populations and industrial activities along coastlines. In this vein, coastlines endure many conflicts, which lead to the degradation of cultural and natural resources and may result in loss of cultural identity associated with the presence of cultural landscapes. The paper aims, to discuss planning approaches and challenges related to managing cultural and coastal landscapes, facing the impact of coastal sprawl. The paper is based on a landscape analysis; it interviews the urban, social, juridical and morphological frame. An understanding of urban sprawl through the lens of Annaba’s coastline is required for its implication as a social support of the identity and the history of the city. The paper also examines how the coastalization affects the cultural heritage based on the monograph of one of the valuable French colonial constructions in Algeria. Lastly, the study demonstrates, some key opportunities for advancing future adjustments, and coastal management approaches. For instance, new tools and more appropriate methodologies that combine the preservation of the coastline and the preservation of the cultural heritage

An Accelerate Process for the Successive Approximations Method In the Case of Monotonous Convergence

We study an iterative process to accelerate the successive approximations method in a monotonous convergence framework. It consists in interrupting the sequence of the successive approximations method produced at the kth iteration and substituting it by a combination of the element of the sequence produced at the iterate k + 1 and an extrapolation vector. The latter uses a parameter which can be calculated mathematically. We illustrate numerically this process by studying a freeboundary problems class

Leveraging Counterfactual Paths for Contrastive Explanations of POMDP Policies

As humans come to rely on autonomous systems more, ensuring the transparency of such systems is important to their continued adoption. Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) aims to reduce confusion and foster trust in systems by providing explanations of agent behavior. Partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) provide a flexible framework capable of reasoning over transition and state uncertainty, while also being amenable to explanation. This work investigates the use of user-provided counterfactuals to generate contrastive explanations of POMDP policies. Feature expectations are used as a means of contrasting the performance of these policies. We demonstrate our approach in a Search and Rescue (SAR) setting. We analyze and discuss the associated challenges through two case studies.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur

Generalized form of fixed-point theorems in generalized Banach algebra relative to the weak topology with an application

In this paper, a general hybrid fixed point theorem for the contractive mappings in generalized Banach spaces is proved via measure of weak non-compactness and it is further applied to fractional integral equations for proving the existence results for the solutions under mixed Lipschitz and weakly sequentially continuous conditions. Finally, an example is given to illustrate the result