Trash, Fragments, and Breaking Things: Toward a Grotesque Cripistemology for Disabled Life Writing

Despite the boom of memoirs of mental health post-1997 and the first advertisements for Prozac, most of them follow the same formula and come from the same places of privilege. This privilege is evident in the author bios on the books themselves and the careers of the writers. The popularity of these books within both abled and disabled realms has therefore created a script that those with mental illnesses are expected to abide by. Following in the example of Margaret Price, Katie Rose Guest Pryal, Merri Lisa Johnson, and others, I resituate mental illness as mental disability and place it within the world of disability studies. In doing so, this dissertation explores practical uses of Johnson and Robert McRuer’s cripistemologies, Johnson’s c/rip, and Flannery O’Connor’s and Yuan Yuan’s grotesque as methods for establishing the beginnings of a grotesque cripistemology with which those with mental disabilities might construct accessible narratives. Through a close look at zines and glitches, I seek to discover ways in which writers with mental disabilities might use fragmented writing, trash, and brokenness in order to utilize this new grotesque cripistemology in order to not construct stories of overcoming aimed at abled audiences, but rather stories of the self and of being within the hurricane which is to have a mental disability unabashedly aimed at a disabled audience

An evaluation of Land Use Changes and Their Associated Hydrologic Impacts In the Birch Creek Watershed, Halifax County, Virginia 1986-1998

This project is a study of the water quality and land us e changes that have occurred in the Birch Creek watershed in Halifax County, Virginia from 1987 to 1998. The purpose of t his project i s to identify water quality trends and potential linkages to land use changes during the time frame of the study. The information was obtained by analyzing data collected by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. The data had been gathered and archived, but not previously examined for trends or causal factors. Through the analysis, definite increasing and decreasing trends in the concentrations of fecal coliform, nitrogen compounds , and phosphorus compounds were discovered. Also , it was determined that clear cutting in the Birch Creek watershed had tripled in the last twelve years and that forestry and agricultural activities in the water shed had a significant effect on this system \u27s water quality

Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law

Examines the unique aspects and limitations of legal education, as part of a series of reports from the foundation's Preparation for the Professions Program

Contributions of Body Fat and Effort in the 5K Run: Age and Body Weight Handicap

The 5K handicap (5KH), designed to eliminate the body weight (BW) and age biases inherent in the 5K run time (RT), yields an adjusted RT (RTadj) that can be compared between runners of different BW and age. As hypothesized in a validation study, however, not all BW bias may be removed, because of the influences of body fatness (BF) and effort (run speed; essentially the inverse as measured by rating of perceived exertion (RPE)). This study\u27s purpose was to determine the effects of BF and RPE on BW bias in the 5KH. For 99 male runners in a regional 5K race (age = 43.9 ± 12.1 years; BW = 83.4 ± 12.9 kg), BF was determined via sum of three skinfolds just before the race. RPE, on the 20-point Borg scale, was used to assess overall race effort on race completion. Multiple regression analysis was used to develop a new adjusted RT (NRTadj, the RTadj corrected for BF and RPE), which was computed for each runner and then correlated with BW to determine bias. Indicative of slight bias, BW was correlated with RTadj (r = 0.220, p = 0.029). Both BF (p = 0.00002) and RPE (p = 0.0005) were significant, independent predictors of RTadj. NRTadj was not significantly correlated with BW (r = 0.051, p = 0.61), but BF explained 90%, and RPE explained only 6%, of the remaining BW bias evidenced in the 5KH. The previous finding that the 5KH does not remove all BW bias is apparently accounted for by BF and not RPE. Because no handicap should be awarded for higher BF, this finding suggests that the 5KH, for men, appropriately adjusts for the age and BW vs. RT biases previously noted

An enzymic and physical chemical study of antibiotic sensitive and resistant Staphylococci

Microelectrophoretic and enzyme assay techniques were used to investigate the surface properties of cells of strains of Staphylococcus aureus which were sensitive or resistant to methicillin. An alkaline phosphatase enzyme system was found in cells with natural resistance to methicillin; cells sensitive to the antibiotic or which had been repeatedly grown in the presence of the antibiotic showed no phosphatase activity. This heat labile enzyme system had an optimum activity at pH 10.00--10.20 and 37&deg;C and was firmly attached to the cell. The alkaline phosphatase was not inhibited by inorganic phosphate, although excess phosphate in the growth medium repressed its formation. The production of the enzyme was sensitive to the Temperature of growth of the cells; cells grown at 27&deg; and 37 &deg;C exhibited a high phosphatase activity whereas cells grown at 42&deg;C showed little or no activity. There was a correlation between the production of the enzyme system, the amount of surface teichoic acid associated with the cells and methicillin resistance. It was concluded that this alkaline phosphatase enzyme system was the temperature dependent enzyme suggested previously to account for the temperature response of resistant cells of Staph. aureus to methicillin.<p

Modular Manufacture and Construction of Small Nuclear Power Generation Systems

Nuclear power is a stable, secure, low-carbon energy source; however, recent nuclear power plant projects are challenged by long build times and high construction costs, making them difficult to finance. Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are nuclear reactors smaller than 300 MWe and claim to leverage manufacturing principles and modular build to resolve these issues and help improve the competitiveness of nuclear power. This project investigates modular build in a nuclear context, explores modularisation principles and best practises in other industries, identifies key constraints and optimisation criteria, and develops a new conceptual framework for modularising nuclear plants based on their size and subject to transport constraints. Transportation limits the type and amount of construction work that can be moved off-site. Due to their smaller size, up to 80% of a SMR plant can be modularised and transported by road, compared to only 20% for large reactors. Schedule and cost benefits are maximised when at least 60% of in-situ work is moved off-site, favouring fully modular units smaller than 600 MWe. Stick-built SMRs are not competitive with large reactors on the basis of their construction cost. A fully modularised SMR, however, can move 50% of its overnight construction cost off-site, achieving costs of \$5,470/kWe (300 MWe SMR), competitive with the reference \$6,000/kWe cost for a stick-built large reactor. Build schedule indirectly impacts construction cost by affecting overheads and interest during construction. Modular SMRs have the greatest scope for schedule reduction, moving 30% of in-situ time off-site and reducing build time to 3.5 years (300 MWe SMR), compared to 6.5 years for stick-built large reactors. Production learning is also critical to SMR economics and, when coupled with shorter build schedules, significantly impacts SMR total capital investment costs. A standardised series of modular SMRs can reach total capital costs of \$4,600/kWe (300 MWe SMR) and can compete with the \$4,400/kWe benchmark for energy technologies. SMRs have a unique opportunity to utilise modularisation and this project shows how they can leverage modular build to improve the economic competitiveness of nuclear power.Funded by EPSRC and Arup Lt

Bodies over borders : trans-sizing the expatriate experience

PhD ThesisThis thesis introduces the concept of trans-sizing to explore the discursive, embodied and relational experiences of expatriate women in Singapore, and the multiple ways that body size and migration experiences intersect within different spaces in the city. The thesis is based on empirical research with women living in Singapore who identified themselves as expatriates. The focus of this study is upon the ways that experiences of body size shape narrations of migration. I explore this relationship through discursive constructions, embodied and emotional experiences and relational encounters. I argue that body size is spatially contingent and significant to the way that identity, difference and migration are imagined and narrated within the city. Furthermore, I argue that narrations of body size are constructed through gendered, medicalised, classed and racialised discourses that divide women from different places. The study explores the multiple ways that experiences of body size and migration intersect in social and cultural spaces within Singapore. I situate this research in the intersections of geographical work on migration and the interdisciplinary field of Fat Studies. In so doing, I highlight the centrality of body size as an axis of identity that is inherently geographical (Longhurst, 2005). Drawing on an in-depth analysis of 45 individual interviews and one focus group, the study values the words and experiences of expatriate women, providing a nuanced and innovative approach to explorations of migration, gender and body size. By developing the concept of trans-sizing, this research responds to the need for cross-cultural approaches to critical work on body size (Cooper, 2009), the gendered nature of expatriate migration (Fechter and Walsh, 2012), and embodied studies of transnationalism (Dunn, 2010), and contributes to the growing body of work that explores body size from a critical and spatial perspective (Colls and Evans, 2009)