Sexual/textual marginalities of Caribbean inspiration and origin a thesis on two texts by two women writers of Caribbean origin upon the theme of marginality

This thesis is an exploration of the theme of Marginality in Writing by women of Caribbean origin. My work condensed itself into a specific analysis of two texts. Taken together, these texts focus the insights I researched into a significant whole. Each text was written by a woman of Caribbean origin, and their backgrounds are a symbolic polarity from each other. Jean Rhys was a white Creole born in Dominica in 1894 and who spent her adult life in England; Jamaica Kincaid is black, native to Antigua and now a journalist in New York. The protagonists of each text - Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid, and Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys - are both young girls influenced by the image of their mothers. Significantly, they share almost the same name (Annie/Antoinette) which is also that of their mothers. Thus they become a symbolic fusion of a heroine of Caribbean origin. In the course of extensive and eclectic reading, I discovered the theme of Marginality to be entwined with the concept of Intertextuality. In separate chapters, I have discussed marginality with reference to narrative structure and narrative time, image and metaphor, culture (which involves colonialism in the Caribbean), race relations and gender (specifically feminist), and ultimately according to Susan Sontag's observation of the marginal literary subject: an unimportant 'work' ... could be a marvellous 'text’. Considering something as a 'text' means...precisely to suspend conventional evaluations. ... notions of 'text’ and 'textuality' charges the critic with the task of discarding worn-out meanings for fresh ones. I hope that in the course of my thesis, I have succeeded in the enlightenment of fresh meanings in Writing by women of Caribbean origin. I conclude that an understanding of the significance of these texts lies in the fact that their marginal quality is part of a total intertextuality

Influences of InGaN quantum well thickness on the internal quantum efficiency for GaN LED visible Light communication

Nowadays, semiconductor lighting industry has been developed rapidly throughout the world. Light emitting diodes (LEDs) are known as a compound semiconductor device that can emit visible light when there is an electron current passed through it. In recent years, the group III – nitride semiconductor compounds with gallium (Ga) have developed as the leading materials for manufacturing energy-efficient LED [1]. The reason of GaN becoming the trend is due to the excellent optical properties and it is able to emit a wide range of wavelengths in the visible spectrum at the efficiency which greater than traditional lighting technologies [2]. The group III – nitride semiconductor compounds are typically grown with wurtzite crystal structure which consists of a large band gap around 1.0 eV to 6.0 eV

Threshold Regression for Survival Analysis: Modeling Event Times by a Stochastic Process Reaching a Boundary

Many researchers have investigated first hitting times as models for survival data. First hitting times arise naturally in many types of stochastic processes, ranging from Wiener processes to Markov chains. In a survival context, the state of the underlying process represents the strength of an item or the health of an individual. The item fails or the individual experiences a clinical endpoint when the process reaches an adverse threshold state for the first time. The time scale can be calendar time or some other operational measure of degradation or disease progression. In many applications, the process is latent (i.e., unobservable). Threshold regression refers to first-hitting-time models with regression structures that accommodate covariate data. The parameters of the process, threshold state and time scale may depend on the covariates. This paper reviews aspects of this topic and discusses fruitful avenues for future research.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/088342306000000330 in the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Beliefs in advance care planning among Chinese Americans: Similarities and differences between the younger and older generations

The purpose of this research is to explore behavioral, normative, and control beliefs in the discussion of advance care planning (ACP) among older and younger Chinese Americans. Ethnic minority groups have been identified as less engaged in ACP and this represents an ethnic and cultural gap. Older Chinese American adults often have different beliefs and values compared to the younger generation who are more acculturated to American mainstream culture. These differences may hinder the discussion of ACP with Chinese older adults. A qualitative design was used. The Theory of Planned Behavior guided the development of the interview guide. We recruited 60 Chinese Americans. Prior experience was identified as a theme that influenced attitudes about ACP. We found that older and younger Chinese participants had different beliefs in the norm and control related to ACP discussions, but not in the belief of attitudes about ACP discussions. Both younger and older Chinese American participants believed that ACP was important and necessary. Participants in both clusters expressed that they were ready and willing to engage in ACP discussions with their family members but hesitant to initiate these discussions. The reluctance in discussing ACP with Chinese older adults may be related to the expectations and obligations of Xiao (filial piety) in Chinese culture. This study describes the similarities and differences of beliefs in ACP between older and younger Chinese Americans. We identified barriers and facilitators in behavioral, normative, and control beliefs that can be used to promote ACP for Chinese Americans

A Study of the Selection of Reading Strategies among Genders by EFL College Students

AbstractThe purpose of this study was aimed to probe the question whether foreign language reading strategies use among EFL college freshmen differ according to different genders and the differences of frequency using types of reading strategies. Results indicated that the differences between male and female students on the types of reading strategies were significant, male students reported greater strategy use than their female counterparts regarding memory, cognitive, compensation strategies, while fewer males than females used strategies of meta-cognitive and social-affective while reading. In addition, males were more worried about unknown words compared to their counterparts while reading

Properties Of Indefinite Matrix Constraints For Linear Programming In Optimal Solution

Finding the optimum solution in engineering and science is a common problem where one wishes to get the objective under certain constraints.This situation is also a typical issue in manufacturing industries where maximum profit and minimum cost are a common objective under certain constraints on the available resources.One approach to solve optimization is to use formulation problem in linear form and subjects to linear constraints,the problem can be deliberated as linear programming problem.The linear constraints can be in a form of a matrix.There are limited researches that discuss the effect of the properties of matrix constraint to the solution.In fact,the matrix constraint has significant influence to the existent of the optimal solution to the optimization problem.This research focused on the investigation of characteristics of non-symmetric indefinite square matrices of linear programming problems which represent the constraints of linear programming problems.The non-symmetric indefinite square matrices are generated randomly by the MATLAB simulation software and its indefinite properties are verified through the principal minor test,quadratic form test and eigenvalues test.The solutions of the primal and dual linear programming problem are simulated and discussed.Optimization software,LINGO,is used to validate the solutions to assure the reliability of the simulated solutions in the MATLAB software.Based on the simulation results,some of the non-symmetric indefinite random matrices found duality gap and those matrices could not provide optimal solution to the problem.Whereas,some indefinite matrices with certain characteristics could achieve optimal solution and no duality gap presented.An indefinite random matrix with all positive off-diagonal entries and the determinant of leading principal minors with positive sign at odd orders and negative sign at even orders surely deliver the optimal solution to the linear programming problems.This research may contribute to the advancement of linear programming solution particularly when the constraints form an indefinite matrix

Systems Biology of Platelet Activation

Platelet intracellular calcium mobilization [Ca(t)]i is a measure of platelet activation and controls important events downstream that contribute to hemostasis such as granule release, cyclooxygenase-1 and integrin activation, and phosphatidylserine exposure. Accurate simulations of blood clotting events require prediction of platelet [Ca(t)]i in response to combinatorial agonists. Therefore, a data-driven human platelet calcium calculator was developed using neural network (NN) ensemble trained on pairwise agonist scanning (PAS) data. PAS deployed all single and pairwise combinations of six important agonists (ADP, convulxin, thrombin, U46619, iloprost and GSNO used at 0.1, 1, and 10xEC50 to stimulate platelet P2Y1/P2Y12, GPVI, PAR1/PAR4, TP, IP receptors, and guanylate cyclase, respectively, in Factor Xa-inhibited (250 nM apixaban), diluted platelet rich plasma. PAS of 10 healthy donors (5 male, 5 female) provided [Ca(t)]i data for training 10 neural networks (NN, 2-layer/12-nodes) per donor. Trinary stimulations were then conducted at all 0.1x and 1xEC50 doses (160 conditions) as was a sampling of 45 higher ordered combinations (four to six agonists). The NN-ensemble average accurately predicted [Ca (t)]i beyond the single and binary training set for trinary stimulations (R = 0.924). The 160 trinary synergy scores, a normalized metric of signaling crosstalk, were also well predicted (R = 0.850) as were the calcium dynamics (R = 0.871) and high-dimensional synergy scores (R = 0.695) for the 45 higher ordered conditions. The calculator even predicted sequential addition experiments (n = 54 conditions, R = 0.921). NN-ensemble is a fast calcium calculator that proved to be useful for multiscale clotting simulations that include spatiotemporal concentrations of ADP, collagen, thrombin, thromboxane, prostacyclin, and nitric oxide. From sequential addition experiments done in PAS, it was discovered that activating platelets with thrombin in platelet-rich plasma (PRP) caused an attenuation of convulxin-induced, GPVI platelet receptor-mediated, calcium mobilization when convulxin was added to PRP approximately six minutes later. This attenuation effect was not observed when ADP and thromboxane analog, U46619 was used in place of thrombin. When PAR-1 and PAR-4 receptor agonists (AYPGKF and SFLLRN) were used instead of thrombin for the initial dispense, the subsequent convulxin-induced calcium response was also unaffected, demonstrating thrombin’s unique role in causing attenuation of subsequent convulxin-induced calcium mobilization. Thrombin, unlike ADP, U46619 or the PAR-1 and PAR-4 receptor agonists, is able to polymerize fibrinogen into fibrin. When GPRP was added to prevent polymerization of fibrin, initial platelet activation by thrombin did not result in attenuation of convulxin- induced calcium mobilization. This experiment was repeated using a mixture of washed platelets and fibrinogen monomers instead of PRP and yielded similar results. The presence of polymerized fibrin also reduced platelet deposition in a microfluidic assay on a collagen surface. These results suggest that polymerized fibrin binds to and downregulates platelet GPVI, a platelet receptor that is important to thrombus growth and is central to mediating hemostasis