The novelist's pair of tongs : an investigation into the literary significance of John A. Lee's novels : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of M.A. in English Literature at Massey University

With regard to Chapter 1: to find out how Children of the Poor, The Hunted and Civilian Into Soldier were originally received I have perused over 100 contemporary comments in newspapers, magazines and letters of overseas and New Zealand origin. I was aided in this search by Mr. Lee who made his files available to me at "Vital Books Ltd.," Auckland. The files were in no apparent order apart from a characteristic antithetical juxtapositioning of some comments; nor were the files complete; some documents were sealed. There were enough items of interest, nevertheless, to produce a firm outline of the history of the reception of the novels. Additional reviews were obtained from various libraries. To find out how subsequent critics have judged the novels I have studied approximately 25 comments by New Zealand scholars and writers in various publications from the forties to the sixties, and in letters. Post-contemporary comment has been arranged as far as it was possible in chronological order. There has been no intentional slanting in the selection and arrangement of comments. To describe the literary source of Lee's acknowledged power I subjected his first three published novels to a close reading. My observations on structure are confined mainly to Ch. IV. Style is detailed in Ch. V. It is not unusual for original feeling to disappear after analysis. Eliot noticed this happening, in Frontiers of Criticism, in which essay he refers to "the lemon squeezer school". Lee, however, presents the literary object in such a way that feeling tends to follow thought so that on thinking feeling returns. The alternation is endless and urgent. Current readership statements have been detailed in the appendix. In most instances book titles throughout the thesis have been abbreviated to initial letters thus: COP (Children of the Poor), TH (The Hunted), CIS (Civilian Into Soldier), LWPS (The Lee Way to Public Speaking). The photos of the frontispiece are from the N. Z. Listener 17 Nov. 1967. My thanks to Professor R. G. Frean who asked me to consider a thesis on John A. Lee, and who with Dr Broughton concluded that "such a study would have intrinsic merit." I am also pleased to acknowledge their advice and direction together with that of Mr O'Gorman. I thank also Miss Rodger who helped to find obscure references. Much appreciated, too, has been the goodwill and co-operation of all correspondents. [From Preface

Structural and Compositional Investigation of Pottery Samples from Guatemala

Purpose of investigation: The composition and characteristics of Mayan pottery samples from Guatemala was investigated

Physician Income Expectations and Specialty Choice

In spite of the important role of income expectations in economics, economists know little about how people actually form these expectations. We use a unique data set that contains the explicit income expectations of medical students over a 25-year time period to examine how students form income expectations. We examine whether students condition their expectations on their own ability, contemporaneous physician income, and the ex post income of physicians in their medical school cohort. We then test whether a model that uses the students' explicit income expectations to predict their specialty choices has a better fit than a model that assumes income expectations are formed statically, and a model that bases income expectations on ex post income.

Physician Income Prediction Errors: Sources and Implications for Behavior

Although income expectations play a central role in many economic decisions, little is known about the sources of income prediction errors and how agents respond to income shocks. This paper uses a unique panel data set to examine the accuracy of physicians' income expectations, the sources of income prediction errors, and the effect of income prediction errors on physician behavior. The data set contains direct survey measures of income expectations for medical students who graduated between 1970 and 1998, their corresponding income realizations, and a rich summary of the shocks hitting their medical practices. We find that income prediction errors were positive on average over the sample period, but varied significantly over time and cross-sectionally. We trace these results to persistent specialty-specific shocks, such as the growth of health maintenance organizations (HMOs) and other changes across health care markets. Physicians who experienced negative income shocks were more likely to respond by increasing their hours worked, allocating fewer of their work hours to teaching/research and more to patient care, and were more likely to switch specialties.

Widening access in selection using situational judgement tests: evidence from the UKCAT

CONTEXT Widening access promotes student diversity and the appropriate representation of all demographic groups. This study aims to examine diversity-related benefits of the use of situational judgement tests (SJTs) in the UK Clinical Aptitude Test (UKCAT) in terms of three demographic variables: (i) socioeconomic status (SES); (ii) ethnicity, and (iii) gender. METHODS Outcomes in medical and dental school applicant cohorts for the years 2012 (n = 15 581) and 2013 (n = 15 454) were studied. Applicants' scores on cognitive tests and an SJT were linked to SES (parents' occupational status), ethnicity (White versus Black and other minority ethnic candidates), and gender. RESULTS Firstly, the effect size for SES was lower for the SJT (d = 0.13-0.20 in favour of the higher SES group) than it was for the cognitive tests (d = 0.38-0.35). Secondly, effect sizes for ethnicity of the SJT and cognitive tests were similar (d = similar to 0.50 in favour of White candidates). Thirdly, males outperformed females on cognitive tests, whereas the reverse was true for SJTs. When equal weight was given to the SJT and the cognitive tests in the admission decision and when the selection ratio was stringent, simulated scenarios showed that using an SJT in addition to cognitive tests might enable admissions boards to select more students from lower SES backgrounds and more female students. CONCLUSIONS The SJT has the potential to appropriately complement cognitive tests in the selection of doctors and dentists. It may also put candidates of lower SES backgrounds at less of a disadvantage and may potentially diversify the student intake. However, use of the SJT applied in this study did not diminish the role of ethnicity. Future research should examine these findings with other SJTs and other tests internationally and scrutinise the causes underlying the role of ethnicity

Financial markets: very noisy information processing

We report new results about the impact of noise on information processing with application to financial markets. These results quantify the tradeoff between the amount of data and the noise level in the data. They also provide estimates for the performance of a learning system in terms of the noise level. We use these results to derive a method for detecting the change in market volatility from period to period. We successfully apply these results to the four major foreign exchange (FX) markets. The results hold for linear as well as nonlinear learning models and algorithms and for different noise models

Low complexity method for large-scale self-consistent ab initio electronic-structure calculations without localization

A novel low complexity method to perform self-consistent electronic-structure calculations using the Kohn-Sham formalism of density functional theory is presented. Localization constraints are neither imposed nor required thereby allowing direct comparison with conventional cubically scaling algorithms. The method has, to date, the lowest complexity of any algorithm for an exact calculation. A simple one-dimensional model system is used to thoroughly test the numerical stability of the algorithm and results for a real physical system are also given

Thermodynamic evaluation of transonic compressor rotors using the finite volume approach

Research at NASA Lewis Research Center gave the opportunity to incorporate new control volumes in the Denton 3-D finite-volume time marching code. For duct flows, the new control volumes require no transverse smoothing and this allows calculations with large transverse gradients in properties without significant numerical total pressure losses. Possibilities for improving the Denton code to obtain better distributions of properties through shocks were demonstrated. Much better total pressure distributions through shocks are obtained when the interpolated effective pressure, needed to stabilize the solution procedure, is used to calculate the total pressure. This simple change largely eliminates the undershoot in total pressure down-stream of a shock. Overshoots and undershoots in total pressure can then be further reduced by a factor of 10 by adopting the effective density method, rather than the effective pressure method. Use of a Mach number dependent interpolation scheme for pressure then removes the overshoot in static pressure downstream of a shock. The stability of interpolation schemes used for the calculation of effective density is analyzed and a Mach number dependent scheme is developed, combining the advantages of the correct perfect gas equation for subsonic flow with the stability of 2-point and 3-point interpolation schemes for supersonic flow

STS-31 Space Shuttle mission report

The STS-31 Space Shuttle Program Mission Report contains a summary of the vehicle subsystem activities on this thirty-fifth flight of the Space Shuttle and the tenth flight of the Orbiter Vehicle Discovery (OV-103). In addition to the Discovery vehicle, the flight vehicle consisted of an External Tank (ET) (designated as ET-34/LWT-27), three Space Shuttle main engines (SSME's) (serial numbers 2011, 2031, and 2107), and two Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) (designated as BI-037). The primary objective of the mission was to place the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) into a 330 nmi. circular orbit having an inclination of 28.45 degrees. The secondary objectives were to perform all operations necessary to support the requirements of the Protein Crystal Growth (PCG), Investigations into Polymer Membrane Processing (IPMP), Radiation Monitoring Equipment (RME), Ascent Particle Monitor (APM), IMAX Cargo Bay Camera (ICBC), Air Force Maui Optical Site Calibration Test (AMOS), IMAX Crew Compartment Camera, and Ion Arc payloads. In addition, 12 development test objectives (DTO's) and 10 detailed supplementary objectives (DSO's) were assigned to the flight. The sequence of events for this mission is shown. The significant problems that occurred in the Space Shuttle Orbiter subsystems during the mission are summarized, and the official problem tracking list is presented. In addition, each of the Space Shuttle Orbiter problems is cited in the subsystem discussion