Reservoir dogs and the noir male : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Media Studies at Massey University

This thesis presents a study of the noir male - the protagonist from the body of films known as film noir The purpose of the study is to show that a composite of the noir male character can be found constructed in Quentin Tarantino's 1992 directorial debut, Reservoir Dogs. This is achieved through a comparative study of film noir theory, especially as it relates to the noir male character, and Reservoir Dogs and it's characters. There are three parts. First is the establishment of the theoretical approach of neoformalism, predominantly as defined by Kristin Thompson in her 1988 text, Breaking the Glass Armor: Neoformalist Film Analysis. The second part is an examination of the theory of film noir, in order to draw a clear picture of what constitutes the characteristics of the noir male and his supporting environment. This includes the origins of film noir and the noir male; visual style; the urban setting; chronology of noir, common themes; the femme fatale; the noir protagonist himself; and neo noir It is a premise of the thesis that the nature of the noir male is encapsulated in, and reflected by, the common components of film noir films. This premise is supported in the discussion. The third part is a reading of Reservoir Dogs, with a focus on the characters and their interaction with the film, and each other. This includes discussion of the social influences which mark the environment of noir, the popular culture influence; the way Reservoir Dogs and noir challenge the spectator; discussion of the chronological structure of Reservoir Dogs, the relationship of transgression, which characterizes the noir male's interaction with the femme fatale role; the urban setting, and the theme and mood of film noir Drawing together these parts it is possible to conclude that the characters of Reservoir Dogs, supported by the environment and relationships created in the film, form a composite representation of the noir male

Spacecraft studies of Phobos and Mars

Utilizing the Termoskan data set of the Phobos '88 mission we have recognized a new feature on Mars: Ejecta blanket Distinct In the THermal infrared (EDITH). Virtually all of the more than one hundred of these features discovered in the Termoskan data are located on the plains near Valles Manneris. EDITH's have a startlingly clear dependence upon terrains of Hesperian age, implying a spatial or temporal dependence on Hesperian terrains. Almost no thermally distinct ejecta blankets are associated with any of the thousands of craters within the data set that occur on the older Noachian units. EDITH's also do not appear on the portions of the younger Tharsis Amazonian units seen in the data. The Hesperian terrain dependence cannot be explained by either atmospheric or impactor variations; Noachian and Hesperian terrains must have experienced identical atmospheric and impactor conditions during Hesperian times. Thermally distinct eject a blankets therefore reflect target material differences and/or secondary modification processes. A further discussion of EIDTH's is presented

Reconstructing diffusion fields sampled with a network of arbitrarily distributed sensors

Sensor networks are becoming increasingly prevalent for monitoring physical phenomena of interest. For such wireless sensor network applications, knowledge of node location is important. Although a uniform sensor distribution is common in the literature, it is normally difficult to achieve in reality. Thus we propose a robust algorithm for reconstructing two-dimensional diffusion fields, sampled with a network of arbitrarily placed sensors. The two-step method proposed here is based on source parameter estimation: in the first step, by properly combining the field sensed through well-chosen test functions, we show how Prony's method can reveal locations and intensities of the sources inducing the field. The second step then uses a modification of the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality to estimate the activation time in the single source field. We combine these steps to give a multi-source field estimation algorithm and carry out extensive numerical simulations to evaluate its performance

Solving physics-driven inverse problems via structured least squares

Numerous physical phenomena are well modeled by partial differential equations (PDEs); they describe a wide range of phenomena across many application domains, from model- ing EEG signals in electroencephalography to, modeling the release and propagation of toxic substances in environmental monitoring. In these applications it is often of interest to find the sources of the resulting phenomena, given some sparse sensor measurements of it. This will be the main task of this work. Specifically, we will show that finding the sources of such PDE-driven fields can be turned into solving a class of well-known multi-dimensional structured least squares prob- lems. This link is achieved by leveraging from recent results in modern sampling theory – in particular, the approximate Strang-Fix theory. Subsequently, numerical simulation re- sults are provided in order to demonstrate the validity and robustness of the proposed framework

Ten Micron Photometry of 25 Stars from B8 To M7

A photometer employing a liquid hydrogen-cooled mercury-doped germanium photoconductor whose spectral response is limited to the 8 - 14 µ region by a low pass interference filter and a BaF_2 window coupled with the cell's threshold wavelength has been placed at the east arm Cassegrain focus of the 200 inch Hale telescope. Twenty-five stars have been measured. The earliest star for which two measurements have been obtained is the B8Ia star β Orionis. The latest star is the M7e star X Cygni. The brightest star, L37 X 10^(-14) watts/cm^2, is α Orionis. The carbon star DS Peg was also measured. In a two-color diagram formed with B and V there is an intrinsic increase in dispersion going to later type stars and a systematic trend away from the blackbody relation. The ratios of the stellar fluxes to those expected from blackbodies at the published stellar effective-temperatures and angular diameters are not far from one. A systematic trend exhibited may not be real because of the assumptions involved in inteferometric diameter determinations. DS Peg does not appear overly peculiar in the two-color plots, but X,Cygni falls on the opposite side of the blackbody curve ("blue excess") compared with most of the late type stars. The fluxes presented here have not been corrected for presently uncertain telescope transmission losses which may be important

Surface Temperature Variations during the Lunar Nighttime

A new photometer incorporating a mercury-doped germanium photoconductor has been used with a 19-inch telescope to measure the 8-14- brightness temperatures of the shaded lunar surface. Right- ascension scans carried into the lunar nighttime from the terminator show a characteristic of cooling inconsistent with the occurrence of a thick homogeneous dust layer. It appears th more highiy conducting material either is exposed commonly on the surface or constitutes a substratum generally covered by no more than a centimeter or so of the strongly insulating dust. No difference in nighttime temperature distribution was observed between maria and uplands. However, local areas of higher-thanaverage brightness temperature were encountered. These indicate extensive exposures of consolidated material. Local temperature anomalies of this type are associated with the bright-rayed craters Tycho and Copernicus, but they are distributed over an area larger than that represented by the respective craters. Two other groups of temperature anomalies were found in otherwise undistinguished mare border areas. These observations and others suggest that surface redistribution processes are operative on the lunar surface over at least a 10-meter range, but are not important over distances much in excess of a kilometer

In defence of the 'open university': Wits University, student politics, and university apartheid

African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented 15 May 1995In 1959 the Nationalist Government, after a decade in power, finally passed through Parliament legislation to impose apartheid on South Africa's university system. In protesting against the Government's proposals for university apartheid and an end to black access to the ‘open universities’, Wits and the University of Cape Town (UCT) demonstrated a high degree of solidarity, both in developing a united front on their respective campuses and coordinating action as between themselves. Two corporate protests, the first in the University's history, were organized by Wits against university apartheid; a march from Braamfontein to the City Hall in May 1957, and a general assembly in April 1959 to record the University's 'solemn protest' against the new legislation. Wits continued thereafter to mount 'solemn protests' against the application of university apartheid. In April 1969, to mark the tenth anniversary of the Extension of University Education Act, the University staged a week of demonstrations, culminating in another general assembly. The events of Academic Freedom Week at Wits', Convocation Commentary proudly declared, ‘showed that protest need not disrupt university life. That is the essential difference between student protest here and at some of the bigger institutions in Britain and the United States’

World War II and Wits student politics

African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented 11 October 1993Both nationally and on the Wits campus, the war years constituted a major divide in the realm of student politics. On the national level, the war promoted three developments. Firstly, for the duration of the war, there was virtually a complete breakdown in relations between the English-medium and predominantly Afrikaans-medium university institutions, bringing to a halt the traditional intervarsity competitions. The breakdown was effected at the instigation of the highly politicised Afrikaanse Nasionale Studentebond (ANS), the national organisation formed by the Afrikaner SRCs in the 1930s. Secondly, the war turned into a graveyard for the ANS, which identified itself with the paramilitary, pro-Nazi Ossewabrandwag (OB). The history of the ANS has yet to be written, but it is evident that the organisation fragmented badly in 1942 in the face of the drive of the parliamentary National Party to assert its ascendancy over political Afrikanerdom. After 1942 teacher training colleges, rather than university institutions, provided the ANS with its chief support base. In 1948, following the formation of the Nationalist Government, the ANS was replaced by the Afrikaanse Studentebond (ASB). Thirdly, the outcome of the war was crucial in determining the character of the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), effectively the national organisation of English-speaking students. During the war NUSAS sought to keep itself intact by averting polarising issues, notably the admission to its ranks of Fort Hare Native College. The outcome of the war, perceived as a defeat for the forces of Fascism and racism, ultimately ensured the admission of Fort Hare, and NUSAS finally emerged as a 'progressive' organisation. On the Wits campus, student organisation and political culture underwent some profound changes as a consequence of the war, and the issues it raised. For the first time students at Wits acquired a real sense of being part of the politics of the country; an organised left appeared on campus in the form of the Federation of Progressive Students (FOPS)

Computational periscopy with an ordinary digital camera

Computing the amounts of light arriving from different directions enables a diffusely reflecting surface to play the part of a mirror in a periscope—that is, perform non-line-of-sight imaging around an obstruction. Because computational periscopy has so far depended on light-travel distances being proportional to the times of flight, it has mostly been performed with expensive, specialized ultrafast optical systems^1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12. Here we introduce a two-dimensional computational periscopy technique that requires only a single photograph captured with an ordinary digital camera. Our technique recovers the position of an opaque object and the scene behind (but not completely obscured by) the object, when both the object and scene are outside the line of sight of the camera, without requiring controlled or time-varying illumination. Such recovery is based on the visible penumbra of the opaque object having a linear dependence on the hidden scene that can be modelled through ray optics. Non-line-of-sight imaging using inexpensive, ubiquitous equipment may have considerable value in monitoring hazardous environments, navigation and detecting hidden adversaries.We thank F. Durand, W. T. Freeman, Y. Ma, J. Rapp, J. H. Shapiro, A. Torralba, F. N. C. Wong and G. W. Wornell for discussions. This work was supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) REVEAL Program contract number HR0011-16-C-0030. (HR0011-16-C-0030 - Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) REVEAL Program)Accepted manuscrip