Reanimating the Creature: The Last Man as a Sequel to Frankenstein

In my thesis, I explore how Mary Shelley\u27s The Last Man (1826) continues a critique of Romanticism that she began in her more well-known novel Frankenstein. Although Frankenstein has been read many different ways through a variety of critical methodologies, one of the central questions continually asked about the novel is whether (and to what extent) Frankenstein challenges or extends the romanticism of her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and others in the Byron-Shelley circle. Another way to investigate this lingering question is through a comparative study of The Last Man. My preliminary thesis is that a comparative study reveals not only close thematic connections between the novels, but, perhaps more importantly, reveals Shelley moving, in The Last Man, toward a more profound critique of Romanticism. The Last Man can be best read as a sequel to Frankenstein. In The Last Man, Mary Shelley tells a tale of friendship, love, and undying commitment to others in her futuristic, science-fiction novel. Shelley plays off of the Romantic ideal of the individual\u27s place in community by creating a plague by which the entire human population is exterminated — everyone except Lionel, the Last Man. In her work, Shelley surpasses the thinking of her well-known parents and marital partner, putting their Romantic ideals to the test in the Victorian era, as well as the twenty-first century (the story takes place in the middle of the twenty-first century and ends precisely in the year two-thousand one-hundred). The larger context of my study is to contribute to the rediscovery of the other Mary Shelley, work begun by such scholars as Betty Bennett, Audrey Fisch and Anne Mellor. By other Mary Shelley, I mean she who listened to the debates of the Romantic era with absolute interest and who would not buy into the idealism of the self at that time, anticipating through her writing Victorian and contemporary issues still present today. Some of the questions that The Last Man forces on the reader include: How should we (or should we not) reevaluate gender and family roles? Can the human condition survive solitary existence, knowing that nature is no longer a comfort? Is nature, rather, a killer of human thought and existence, going against Romantic notions of nature as nurturer? What roles does science play in saving human life? Can it save human existence? Can it redeem human existence? How did Shelley use the conversations her contemporaries were having to best their works? My thesis is a thematic and biographical comparative study of Frankenstein and The Last Man, focusing on how Shelley questions the state of the individual\u27s mind and spirit, a person\u27s place in society and a sense of community with other members of society. Frankenstein defines the horrors possible in creativity, historicism, politics, and scientific thought, all of which were being examined during the Romantic and early Victorian periods of literary history. The Last Man expands upon these horrors and applies them one step further, to the end of the human race

Incidence Of Documented Exercise Prescription In Nurse Practitioner Client With A Diagnosis Of Cardiovascular Disease

The purpose of this ex post facto descriptive study was to determine the incidence of documented exercise prescription in nurse practitioner clients with a diagnosis of cardiovascular disease. Pender\u27s Health Promotion Model provided the theoretical framework for this study. Nurse practitioners providing primary care in the State of Mississippi was the target population, with four nurse practitioners providing care in clinics representing the four geographical regions of Mississippi (Northeast, Southwest, Southeast, and Northwest) selected as a nonrandom sample of convenience. At each clinic, from the total population of records in which clients were aged 25 to 65 years with a diagnosis of cardiovascular disease, 25 client charts were selected for review by the researcher. Records were reviewed for incidence of exercise mention and incidence of exercise prescription. Data were collected using a researcher-designed chart review form. Two research questions guided this study: What is the incidence of documented exercise mention among IV nurse practitioner clients with a diagnosis of cardiovascular disease and what is the incidence of documented exercise prescription among nurse practitioner clients with a diagnosis of cardiovascular disease? Utilizing descriptive statistics, 8% of the charts reviewed contained documentation that the nurse practitioner had advised the client to exercise (exercise mention). Only 1% of charts reviewed contained an actual exercise prescription as specified by the operational definition. ANOVA was used to examine differences between groups. No significant differences existed among groups with regard to age, sex, or exercise prescription. However, a statistical difference at the .05 level was appreciated among groups with regard to documented exercise mention. The findings of this study demonstrate that nurse practitioners are well below the Healthy People 2 000 goal which hopes to increase to 65% the number of health care providers routinely providing clients with an exercise prescription. Perhaps, as indicated by the practitioners in conversation with the researcher, clients are advised by the nurse practitioner to exercise, but exercise is not documented in the client record. Recommendations for further research include conduction of a similar study using the survey method to determine nurse practitioner perception of incidence of exercise prescription and replication of the study using a larger sample size

Preventing Bidding Wars in Washington Adoptions: The Need for Statutory Reform after \u3ci\u3eIn re Dependency of G.C.B.\u3c/i\u3e

In In re Dependency of G.C.B., a Washington court of appeals held that an individual whose parental relationship was involuntarily terminated under the dependency statute lacks standing to later petition to adopt that same child. This Note argues that the Washington adoption statute would not necessarily prevent an equivocating parent who voluntarily relinquished her child from attempting to undo the finality of termination by later seeking to adopt. Nor does the statute effectively limit who can petition to adopt a child to individuals who have been chosen by the child\u27s custodian or who have had the child placed with them. The Note proposes that the Washington adoption statute should be amended to ensure that parents whose relationship with a child is terminated cannot later attempt to relitigate that issue through adoption, and further proposes that eligibility to petition to adopt should be limited so that the child\u27s best interests, not the desires of competing adults, are served

Estimating the Impact of Trade and Offshoring on American Workers Using the Current Population Surveys

In this paper, we link industry-level data on offshoring activities of U.S. multinational firms, import penetration, and export shares with individual level worker data from the Current Population Surveys. We examine whether increasing globalization through offshoring or trade has led to reallocation of labor, both within and out of manufacturing, and measure its impact on the wages of domestic workers. We also control for the "routineness" of individual occupations. Our results suggest that (1) offshoring to high wage countries is positively correlated with U.S. manufacturing employment (2) offshoring to low wage countries is associated with U.S. employment declines (3) wages for workers who remain in manufacturing are generally positively affected by offshoring; in particular, we find that wages are positively associated with an increase in U.S. multinational employment in high income locations (4) much of the negative effects of globalization operate through downward pressure on wages of workers who leave manufacturing to take jobs in agriculture or services and (5) the downward pressure on aggregate U.S. wages operating through import competition has been quite important for some occupations. This effect has been overlooked because it operates across, not within, industries.

Estimating the impact of trade and offshoring on American workers using the current population surveys

The authors link industry-level data on trade and offshoring with individual-level worker data from the Current Population Surveys. They find that occupational exposure to globalization is associated with larger wage effects than industry exposure. This effect has been overlooked because it operates between rather than within sectors of the economy. The authors also find that globalization is associated with a reallocation of workers across sectors and occupations. They estimate wage losses of 2 to 4 percent among workers leaving manufacturing and 4 to 11 percent among workers who also switch occupations. These effects are most pronounced for workers who perform routine tasks.Labor Markets,Labor Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Emerging Markets,E-Business

Effectiveness of public health programs for decreasing alcohol consumption

Excessive alcohol consumption and the associated negative consequences are a major public health concern in the United States and throughout the world. Historically, there have been numerous attempts to develop policies and prevention programs aimed at decreasing high-risk alcohol use. Policy initiatives have demonstrated considerable effectiveness and include changes in the minimum legal drinking age, reductions in acceptable legal limits for blood alcohol concentration while operating a motor vehicle, as well as decreasing availability and access to alcohol for underage individuals. Primary prevention programs that have used exclusively educational approaches have received mixed results. Increasing effectiveness has been associated with prevention programs that have utilized a multi-component approach and have included educational initiatives with environmental changes

Essays on HIV, Marriage and Education in Sub Saharan Africa

Thesis advisor: Peter GottschalkThis paper examines the impact of spatial variation in HIV rates on female marriage rates in Zambia. I formulate a search model that predicts lower marriage rates of educated females relative to uneducated females in regions with higher HIV rates. I use exogenous geographic variation in HIV rates to identify the causal effect of HIV on female marriage. The risk of HIV infection causes marriage rates to fall for educated females but rise for uneducated females. One explanation is that in high HIV regions: (1) educated females take the time to find a partner who will use condoms and get HIV tested, which delays marriage, and (2) uneducated females marry sooner because youth and virginity are prized by males, and employment opportunities are scarce. These findings imply that returns to education for young females are likely underestimated since they miss conceivably substantial health-related benefits. Is widow remarriage beneficial to child school enrollment? Women are widowed at relatively young ages in high-HIV areas of Sub Saharan Africa and are likely to have school-aged children. A main finding in the parental death literature is that the death of a mother hurts child education more so than does the death of a father. This masks important differences in child school enrollment across households who have experienced a father's death. This paper estimates the effect of widow remarriage on child school enrollment by exploiting regional variation in HIV, religion, and the sex ratio. The cross-country empirical results indicate that remarriage is detrimental to child enrollment for widows with less than six years of schooling, yet beneficial to child enrollment for widows with six or more years of schooling. This is consistent with (1) marital sorting by education (correlation=.7), (2) intra-household bargaining, and (3) differences in tastes for remarriage and schooling. A policy implication is that investing in female education in high-HIV areas - among those likely to become widows - can have multiplier effects, as there is complementarity between the returns to education on marriage market outcomes and children's education.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Economics

Blood Volume Unloading Reduces Cerebral Blood Flow

Introduction: Cerebral autoregulation (CA) has been understood for over 50 years to maintain constant cerebral blood flow (CBF) over a wide range of arterial blood pressures (60-150 mmHg), and blood volumes. The original work, which published this relationship, however, was derived from a limited number of studies focused primarily on clinical populations. Since that time, it has been applied to healthy individuals and is a mainstay of almost all physiology textbooks. Recent evidence, however, has suggested that CBF in healthy individuals is not independent of alterations in blood pressure and volume, indicating a possible absence of cerebral autoregulation. Lower body negative pressure (LBNP) and lower body positive pressure (LBPP) are two techniques that involve the non-invasive manipulation of blood volume through the application of either positive or negative pressure on the lower limbs. Application of LBNP works to reduce upper body blood volume, while the opposite effect occurs with LBPP. In this study, through the use of both LBNP and LBPP we aimed to investigate the effects of altered blood volume on CBF in healthy individuals

Statistically Significant Strings are Related to Regulatory Elements in the Promoter Regions of Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Finding out statistically significant words in DNA and protein sequences forms the basis for many genetic studies. By applying the maximal entropy principle, we give one systematic way to study the nonrandom occurrence of words in DNA or protein sequences. Through comparison with experimental results, it was shown that patterns of regulatory binding sites in Saccharomyces cerevisiae(yeast) genomes tend to occur significantly in the promoter regions. We studied two correlated gene family of yeast. The method successfully extracts the binding sites varified by experiments in each family. Many putative regulatory sites in the upstream regions are proposed. The study also suggested that some regulatory sites are a ctive in both directions, while others show directional preference.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures, 3 tables. To appear in Physica