Dostoevsky speaks for Ford: A dialogic interpretation of The Good Soldier

This thesis offers an original interpretation of Ford Madox Ford\u27s novel, The Good Soldier, which focuses on the dialogic and intertextual qualities of Ford\u27s writing. A representative body of previous critical analyses of the novel are reviewed to demonstrate that earlier interpretations, which have assessed the novel according to limited theories of epistemology or language, are inadequate to examine the social criteria for meaning that the novel invites. One of the tasks of this research is to show that the probable origins of Ford\u27s dialogistic narrative modality lie in the writing of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Biographical materials are used to show that Ford was intrigued by Dostoevsky\u27s writing, and was open to other indirect modes of influence by Dostoevsky through his contact with Russian people and their culture. To supplement this, a brief comparative summary of the similarities of plot, narrative structure, and language between The Good Soldier and Dostoevsky\u27s story, The Meek One, will be offered as evidence of Dostoevsky\u27s influence on Ford. The thesis then argues that Dostoevsky\u27s influence manifests itself in the polyphonic form of the novel. The relationship between polyphonic structure and dialogism is used to suggest that the novel\u27s narrative frame opens Ford\u27s writing to the multifarious individual and social voices of his cultural context Furthermore, the thesis contends that multiple voices enter the narrator\u27s discourse as forms of reference and quotation. To assist with this task, Durey\u27s (1993) framework of intertextuality is applied to, and tested against, the novel. The dialogic nature of reference and quotation is utilised to illustrate how the narrator interacts with his speech environment, and the evaluative nature of this interaction is used to show Dowell\u27s understanding of his world. This interaction evinces the narrator\u27s reaction to many of the ineluctable features of the dominant ideology which surround him in the form of intertexts, and will show the means by which Dowell attempts to subvert some aspects of this ideology within his narrative. Conclusions are drawn on the manner in which the narrator makes meaning from his contact with reified, verbal and paralinguistic aspects of his culture. Ford\u27s specific use of intertextual citations within is narrative modality are also examined

Measuring business growth : high growth firms and their contribution to employment in the UK

The Measuring Business Growth report is a comprehensive look at UK business growth over the past decade. It makes a powerful case that a small number of high-growth businesses are responsible for the lion's share of job creation and prosperity

Implementing cardiovascular disease prevention guidelines to translate evidence-based medicine and shared decision making into general practice: theory-based intervention development, qualitative piloting and quantitative feasibility

Background: The use of cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention guidelines based on absolute risk assessment is poor around the world, including Australia. Behavioural barriers amongst GPs and patients include capability (e.g. difficulty communicating/understanding risk) and motivation (e.g. attitudes towards guidelines/medication). This paper outlines the theory-based development of a website for GP guidelines, and piloting of a new risk calculator/decision aid. Methods: Stage 1 involved identifying evidence-based solutions using the Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW) framework, informed by previous research involving 400 GPs and 600 patients/consumers. Stage 2 co-developed website content with GPs. Stage 3 piloted a prototype website at a national GP conference. Stage 4 iteratively improved the website based on "think aloud" interviews with GPs and patients. Stage 5 was a feasibility study to evaluate potential efficacy (guidelines-based recommendations for each risk category), acceptability (intended use) and demand (actual use over 1 month) amongst GPs (n = 98). Results: Stage 1 identified GPs as the target for behaviour change; the need for a new risk calculator/decision aid linked to existing audit and feedback training; and online guidelines as a delivery format. Stage 2-4 iteratively improved content and format based on qualitative feedback from GP and patient user testing over three rounds of website development. Stage 5 suggested potential efficacy with improved identification of hypothetical high risk patients (from 26 to 76%) and recommended medication (from 57 to 86%) after viewing the website (n = 42), but prescribing to low risk patients remained similar (from 19 to 22%; n = 37). Most GPs (89%) indicated they would use the website in the next month, and 72% reported using it again after one month (n = 98). Open feedback identified implementation barriers including a need for integration with medical software, low health literacy resources and pre-consultation assessment. Conclusions: Following a theory-based development process and user co-design, the resulting intervention was acceptable to GPs with high intentions for use, improved identification of patient risk categories and more guidelines-based prescribing intentions for high risk but not low risk patients. The effectiveness of linking the intervention to clinical practice more closely to address implementation barriers will be evaluated in future research

Application of the Panzar-Rosse Model: An Analysis of the Brewery Industry in the U.S.

Waves of mergers and acquisitions has left the brewery industry in the United States considerably concentrated. The top two firms, Anheuser-Busch InBev and MillerCoors control more than 60% of the market share. It has become very important to assess the level of competition within the industry. The Panzar-Rosse model is an assessment of competitive conduct that has been widely used to study the competitiveness of the banking industry. The associated measure of competition, called the H-statistic, is obtained as the sum of elasticities of gross revenue with respect to input prices. For this study, the Panzar-Rosse model will be applied to the United States brewery industry and finds that the H-statistic has a negative value, meaning the industry operates under a neoclassical monopolist style or a collusive oligopoly

Linear Magnetic Chains with Anisotropic Coupling

Linear chains (and rings) of S=12 spins with the anisotropic (Ising-Heisenberg) Hamiltonian ℋ=−2JΣi=1N{SizSi+1z+γ(SixSi+1x+SiySi+1y)}−gβΣi=1NH·Si have been studied by exact machine calculations for N=2 to 11, γ=0 to 1 and for ferro- and antiferro-magnetic coupling. The results reveal the dependence on finite size and anisotropy of the spectrum and dispersion laws, of the energy, entropy, and specific heat, of the magnetization and susceptibilities, and of the pair correlations. The limiting N→∞ behavior is accurately indicated, for all γ, in the region kT∣∣J∣∣\u3e~0.5 which includes the maxima in the specific heat and susceptibility. The behavior of thermal and magnetic properties of infinite chains at lower temperatures is estimated by extrapolation. For infinite antiferromagnetic chains the ground-state degeneracy, the anisotropy gap, and the magnetization, perpendicular susceptibility, and pair correlations at T=0 are similarly studied. Estimates of the long-range order suggest that it vanishes only at the Heisenberg limit γ=1 and confirm the accuracy of Walker\u27s perturbation series in γ

Who creates the jobs?

Addresses Birch's hypothesis, made in 1979 and the subject of much debate since, that small businesses create the most new jobs, using the Office of National Statistics' new Business Structure Database and focusing on the 1998 cohort of new firms and their evolution up to 2008. Assesses: the size of the firms in the cohort; the distribution of jobs as firms moved between size bands; job creation trends in firms that survived with 20+ employees; and job creation by size band. Argues that the answer to the question of 'who creates the jobs?' depends on exactly how the question is framed

Genetic Risk for Alzheimer\u27s Disease Alters the Five-Year Trajectory of Semantic Memory Activation in Cognitively Intact Elders

Healthy aging is associated with cognitive declines typically accompanied by increased task-related brain activity in comparison to younger counterparts. The Scaffolding Theory of Aging and Cognition (STAC) (Park and Reuter-Lorenz, 2009; Reuter-Lorenz and Park, 2014) posits that compensatory brain processes are responsible for maintaining normal cognitive performance in older adults, despite accumulation of aging-related neural damage. Cross-sectional studies indicate that cognitively intact elders at genetic risk for Alzheimer\u27s disease (AD) demonstrate patterns of increased brain activity compared to low risk elders, suggesting that compensation represents an early response to AD-associated pathology. Whether this compensatory response persists or declines with the onset of cognitive impairment can only be addressed using a longitudinal design. The current prospective, 5-year longitudinal study examined brain activation in APOE ε4 carriers (N = 24) and non-carriers (N = 21). All participants, ages 65–85 and cognitively intact at study entry, underwent task-activated fMRI, structural MRI, and neuropsychological assessments at baseline, 18, and 57 months. fMRI activation was measured in response to a semantic memory task requiring participants to discriminate famous from non-famous names. Results indicated that the trajectory of change in brain activation while performing this semantic memory task differed between APOE ε4 carriers and non-carriers. The APOE ε4 group exhibited greater activation than the Low Risk group at baseline, but they subsequently showed a progressive decline in activation during the follow-up periods with corresponding emergence of episodic memory loss and hippocampal atrophy. In contrast, the non-carriers demonstrated a gradual increase in activation over the 5-year period. Our results are consistent with the STAC model by demonstrating that compensation varies with the severity of underlying neural damage and can be exhausted with the onset of cognitive symptoms and increased structural brain pathology. Our fMRI results could not be attributed to changes in task performance, group differences in cerebral perfusion, or regional cortical atrophy

The Surface Wave Magnitude for the 9 October 2006 North Korean Nuclear Explosion

Surface waves were generated by the North Korean nuclear explosion of 9 October 2006 and were recorded at epicentral distances up to 34°, from which we estimated a surface wave magnitude (M_s) of 2.94 with an interstation standard deviation of 0.17 magnitude units. The International Data Center estimated a body-wave magnitude (m_b) of 4.1. This is the only explosion we have analyzed that was not easily screened as an explosion based on the differences between the M_s and m_b estimates. Additionally, this M_s predicts a yield, based on empirical M_s/yield relationships, that is almost an order of magnitude larger than the 0.5–1 kt reported for this explosion. We investigate how emplacement medium effects on surface wave moment and magnitude may have contributed to the yield discrepancy

Introduction to the Bethe ansatz II

Building on the fundamentals introduced in part I, we employ the Bethe ansatz to study some ground-state properties (energy, magnetization, susceptibility) of the one-dimensional s=1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet in zero and nonzero magnetic field. The 2-spinon triplet and singlet excitations from the zero-field ground state are discussed in detail, and their energies are calculated for finite and infinite chains. Procedures for the numerical calculation of real and complex solutions of the Bethe ansatz equations are discussed and applied. The paper is designed as a tutorial for beginning graduate students. It includes 10 problems for further study.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure

A Nutritional and Morphological Study of Two Cyanobacteria Free Azolla Ferns

The symbiotic association between the aquatic water fern Azolla and its symbiont, Anabaena azollae Straus. has been extensively studied in the past ten years. The cyanobacteria has received much of the attention due to its ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen while the fern free of the cyanobiont has been somewhat neglected. The purpose of this research was to determine the nutritional requirements of the cyanobacteria free (CBF) ferns and study the morphology of the leaves and branches of these CBF ferns. Azolla filiculoides and Azolla pinnata were freed of the cyanobiont using the surface sterilization technique adopted from Duckett, et al. (1975) and the antibiotic treatments of Peters and Mayne(1974a). The size of leaf seven, both length and width, along with leaf spacing and branch spacing along the stem, in CBF ferns were compared to that in the intact ferns. Growth studies on medium containing three levels of the nutrients nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium were conducted. The CBF ferns were found to have shorter leaves with no difference in width. The leaf spacing and branch spacing in the CBF ferns were more compact than the intact association. This is the first reported quantitative data to show a definite difference in the morphology of the CBF ferns. The nutrient studies showed an interaction effect between nitrogen and phosphorus in the A. pinnata CBF ferns while the A. filiculoides CBF ferns showed a nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium interaction. The A. pinnata CBF ferns grew best on a medium containing twice the concentration of phosphorus, one times the concentration of nitrogen and three times the concentration of potassium found in our I+ medium. The A. filiculoides CBF ferns grew best on concentrations of twice phosphorus, half nitrogen and three times potassium found in our I+ medium. The results of this research shows the importance of phosphorus to the growth of the CBF ferns. This has been demonstrated in the intact fern association by Subudhi and Watanabe (1981). The results of the morphological studies indicate that either the cyanobiont, by its presence or through secretion of some substance affects the intact ferns growth and that this change can not be completely removed by the addition of specific nutrients to the medium