“In Works of Hands or of the Wits of Men”: The Elegies of Wim Wenders, Laurie Anderson and Alexander Sokurov

This dissertation explores the concept of loss and the possibility of consolation in Wim Wenders’s The Salt of the Earth, Laurie Anderson’s Heart of a Dog and Alexander Sokurov’s Oriental Elegy through a method that inter-reads the films with poetic elegies. Schiller’s classic German elegy “Der Spaziergang” (“The Walk”) and Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies have been used in examining The Salt of the Earth and a late Hölderlin poem “In lieblicher Bläue” (“In Lovely Blue”) is utilised in perusing Oriental Elegy. In Heart of a Dog, Rilke’s “Schwarze Katze” (“Black Cat”) and Derek Walcott’s “Oddjob, a Bull Terrier,” among others, shed light on the working of the elegiac. I have put these films in a conversation with poems to investigate how a filmic elegy can be informed by poetic elegies and how the two arts operate similarly while they are governed by varied sets of rules. While most studies on loss are informed by psychoanalytical theories, I have focused on the formal ways in which these films portray loss and consolation, using one art, poetry, as a guiding framework to illuminate the other art, film. I propose that in The Salt of the Earth, the movement of the elegiac benefits from Deleuzian montage as the film strides towards solace manifested in resuscitation of Amazonian forests and the art of photography. The technical montage and the thematic elegiac converge. Heart of a Dog, however, bases such a motion of elegy on the Buddhist concept of Bardo, where the narrator “decreates” and then re-creates her self through the remedy of love. Finally, Oriental Elegy operates within an apophatic discourse, proposing metaphor and poetic thinking as potential yet transitory sources of consolation. While these films grieve different object of loss, ranging from humans, animals, lands, and even abstract, philosophical concepts such as the meaning of life and happiness, and whereas they introduce various remedies such as art, love, and metaphor, they function similarly formalistically. Taking its cue from Diana Fuss who revisits Freudian melancholia and benefitting from the idea that correlates loss and creativity or “figuration” as observed in Julia Kristeva and Peter Sacks, this dissertation shows how the grieving subjects are positioned in an in-between status which allows them to move forward in the face of loss. This in-betweenness, I have proposed, is manifested in an elliptical structure in the films. In their passage from sorrow, the bemoaning subjects resort to small sources of solace, loci amoeni, signified by different formal and technical elements in the films. Once analysed cinematically and placed in a dialogue with poetic elegies, the Epilogue brings all the films in one place, examining them in relation to Robert Hass’s poem “Meditation at Lagunitas.” Inter-reading the films with this poetic elegy reveals that the musing speaker in the poem and the narrators in the films face loss similarly. What defines loss is the distance between the subjects and their loved lost ones or things, a lacuna that cannot be filled and, hence, the bewailing subjects resort to a kataphatic expression, to naming, which is repetitive, open-ended, and elliptical

Seismic Design and Qualification of All-Steel Buckling-Restrained Braced Frames for Canadian Applications

RÉSUMÉ Les contreventements à diagonales ductiles confinées (DDC) sont devenus le système de contreventement standard pour les bâtiments et pont pour résister aux charges sismiques. Ce système intègre un concept spécifique de diagonales, appelé, DDC, qui ne flambent pas en compression fournissant ainsi un mécanisme de dissipation d'énergie stable. La capacité de dissipation de l'énergie sismique des DDC est fortement reliée à la performance du mécanisme de retenue du flambement qui prévient le noyau ductile interne de subir une déformation latérale excessive. La force transmise au système de confinement dépend de plusieurs facteurs qui doivent évalués avec précision et intégré lors de la conception.----------ABSTRACT Buckling-Restrained Braced Frames (BRBF) have become one of the standard ductile lateral systems for building structures and bridges to resist the earthquake loads. This system incorporates special diagonal elements, called BRB, that do not buckle in compression hence providing a stable and nearly symmetrical hysteretic response in tension and compression with high seismic energy dissipation capacity. The energy dissipation capability of BRBs is strongly linked to the performance of buckling restraining mechanism that constrains the internal ductile core from undergoing excessive lateral deformation. The force demand on the restraining system depends on several factors that should be precisely estimated and implemented in design

Emerging sacred values: The Iranian nuclear program.

Sacred values are different from secular values in that they are often associated with violations of the cost-benefit logic of rational choice models. Previous work on sacred values has been largely limited to religious or territorial conflicts deeply embedded in historical contexts. In this work we find that the Iranian nuclear program, a relatively recent development, is treated as sacred by some Iranians, leading to a greater disapproval of deals which involve monetary incentives to end the program. Our results suggest that depending on the prevalence of such values, incentive-focused negotiations may backfire.protected values, sacred values, negotiation, Iran, nuclear ambitions, sanctions

Emerging sacred values: The Iranian nuclear program.

Sacred values are different from secular values in that they are often associated with violations of the cost-benefit logic of rational choice models. Previous work on sacred values has been largely limited to religious or territorial conflicts deeply embedded in historical contexts. In this work we find that the Iranian nuclear program, a relatively recent development, is treated as sacred by some Iranians, leading to a greater disapproval of deals which involve monetary incentives to end the program. Our results suggest that depending on the prevalence of such values, incentive-focused negotiations may backfire

Syntax Accommodation in Social Media Conversations

The psycholinguistic theory of Communication Accommoda-tion proposes that people modify communication dynamics(e.g. vocal patterns, gesture, word choice, syntax, etc.) tominimize (or maximize) their social differences. Research oncommunication accommodation has shown that people whowant social approval will modify their linguistic style to matchthat of their interactant; however, most studies have been con-ducted on small-scale datasets and in laboratory situations. Inthis work, we investigate the relationship between linguisticsyntactic usage and conversation participation in a more nat-uralistic conversational setting: social media conversations onReddit.com. We introduce a novel approach for calculatingdocument-level syntactic similarity by relying on natural lan-guage processing methods (parse tree generators) and graphtheory techniques (minimum weight perfect matching on com-plete bipartite graphs). Using the proposed method, we presentthe results of two experiments which demonstrate that userswho comment on a post tend to use syntax similar to that ofthe original post. Specifically, we provide evidence that com-ments on a post are more likely to follow the syntactic structureof the original post, compared to both random comments andalso posts by the author of the comment

Towards a Unified Framework for Adaptable Problematic Content Detection via Continual Learning

Detecting problematic content, such as hate speech, is a multifaceted and ever-changing task, influenced by social dynamics, user populations, diversity of sources, and evolving language. There has been significant efforts, both in academia and in industry, to develop annotated resources that capture various aspects of problematic content. Due to researchers' diverse objectives, the annotations are inconsistent and hence, reports of progress on detection of problematic content are fragmented. This pattern is expected to persist unless we consolidate resources considering the dynamic nature of the problem. We propose integrating the available resources, and leveraging their dynamic nature to break this pattern. In this paper, we introduce a continual learning benchmark and framework for problematic content detection comprising over 84 related tasks encompassing 15 annotation schemas from 8 sources. Our benchmark creates a novel measure of progress: prioritizing the adaptability of classifiers to evolving tasks over excelling in specific tasks. To ensure the continuous relevance of our framework, we designed it so that new tasks can easily be integrated into the benchmark. Our baseline results demonstrate the potential of continual learning in capturing the evolving content and adapting to novel manifestations of problematic content

Evaluation of Histological Impacts of Three Types of Orthodontic Fixed Retainers on Periodontium of Rabbits

Statement of the Problem: Fixed retainers were developed to maintain incisor alignments after orthodontic treatments. Although the effects of fixed retainers on periodontal health are clinically studied, no studies have still evaluated the histological changes in the periodontium after the placement of thefixed retainers. Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of customised retainers on periodontium histologically. Materials and Method: Forty pairs of maxillary and mandibular central incisors of twenty rabbits were randomly divided into four equal groups: The first group was considered as the control and in the second group, Fiber Reinforced Composite (FRC), in the third group, 0.014 inch stainless steel (SS) wire and in the fourth group, 0.175 inch multistrand stainless steel (MSS) wire were bonded on the labial surfaces of the incisors. After sixty days; animals' periodontium were evaluated histologically. Results: The number of bone resorption lacuna in the control group was significantly less than FRC and 0.014 SS groups. The periodontal vessel count and their diameter in the control group was significantly lower than the other groups. The pulp vessel count and their diameter in controls were significantly more than the 0.014 SS and the 0.175 MSS groups. Conclusion: Findings of this study suggest that FRC fixed retainer might cause detrimental effects on the periodontal ligaments and supporting bone and the 0.014- inch and 0.175- inch fixed retainers can cause hyalinization and possibly the necrosis of the pulp