Under The Sign Of Suicide

“Under the Sign of Suicide,” examines modernist writers’ intense and sustained preoccupation with and representations of suicide. Beyond numerous essays on the topic, we also find many fictional characters such as Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Svidrigailov and Kirilov both taken by gunshot, Stavrogin and Smerdyakov both by hanging. We also find Franz Kafka’s George Bendemann who takes his life by drowning, and Virginia Woolf’s Septimus Smith by impaling, Her character, Rhoda, dies off a cliff. In American literature, we find Edna Pontellier, Quentin Compson, Clare Kendry, Semour Glass, Teddy McArdle, Willy Loman, Tod Clifton, and on and on. This list is surely not exhaustive. And yet while at first glance modernism’s preoccupation with suicide may appear disturbing, distasteful, or at worst, morbid, my dissertation wagers a surprisingly counter-intuitive gesture. I argue that representations of suicide in modernist literature (specifically works by Walter Benjamin, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Virginia Woolf, and James Baldwin) function not in terms of some pathological exhibitionism, or perhaps worse, as some stigma-prone practice about which we must remain silent. Rather, I argue that by reading a little more closely and by paying attention to the varied yet subtle conditions of suicide’s possibility that we may understand that suicide functions in modernist writing in two related ways: first, as a critique of our modern world, and secondly, as a way to imagine how we could begin to repair our broken relation to this world. “Under the Sign of Suicide” inhabits the liveliness of suicidal activity in an effort to highlight the ways in which its liveliness reveals an avowal of our condition of estrangement under capitalist modernity, on the one hand, and on the other, the ways in which suicidal activity—as a mode of being modern—amplifies our ability to imagine new modes and forms of social reproduction. Which is to say, modernist representations of suicide invite readers to imagine how our world needs to change. In short, rather than perpetuate various stigmas of silence surrounding suicide and suicidal behavior, my dissertation addresses the question, what might happen when we listen to suicidal voices

Caudal cruciate ligament avulsion at its origin in a dog

Η ρήξη του οπίσθιου χιαστού συνδέσμου είναι σπάνια στον σκύλο και συνήθως συνυπάρχει με ταυτό-χρονη ρήξη του πρόσθιου χιαστού συνδέσμου. Ένας ημίαιμος σκύλος ηλικίας 10 μηνών προσκομίστηκε με χωλότητα του οπίσθιου δεξιού άκρου. Η ορθοπαιδική εξέταση αποκάλυψε θετική προσθιοπίσθια συρταρωτή κίνηση στο δεξιό γόνατο. Η αρθροτομή επιβεβαίωσε τη ρήξη του πρόσθιου χιαστού συνδέσμου και έδειξε και απόσπαση του οπίσθιου χιαστού συνδέσμου στην πρόσφυσή του. Το γόνατο σταθεροποιήθηκε με τη χρήση εξωαρθρικής τεχνικής (νάιλον ράμμα μεταξύ έξω σησαμοειδούς και κνημιαίου κυρτώματος). Οκτώ μήνες μετεγχειρητικά ο σκύλος δεν παρουσίαζε εμφανή χωλότητα και παραμένει έτσι μέχρι και την τελευταία επανεξέταση (3 χρόνια). Το περιστατικό αυτό εγείρει την πιθανότητα ότι η αποκατάσταση της λειτουργίας του οπίσθιου χιαστού συνδέσμου δεν είναι πάντα απαραίτητη για την επιτυχή έκβαση των ζώων.Caudal cruciate ligament (CaCL) rupture is uncommon in dogs and usually occurs with a concurrent rupture of the cranial cruciate ligament (CrCL). A 10-month-old cross-bred dog was presented with left hind limb lameness. Orthopaedic examination revealed positive craniocaudal drawer sign in the left stifle. Arthrotomy confirmed CrCL rupture, and showed CaCL avulsion fracture at its origin. The stifle was stabilized using extracapsular lateral fabellotibial suture. Eight months postoperatively the dog was free of obvious lameness and remained sound until the last re-evaluation (3 years). This case raises the possibility that restoration of the CaCL function is not always essential for animals’ successful outcome

Constellation Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA): Design Consideration for the Crew Exploration Vehicle

Managed by NASA's Office of Safety and Mission Assurance, a pilot probabilistic risk analysis (PRA) of the NASA Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) was performed in early 2006. The PRA methods used follow the general guidance provided in the NASA PRA Procedures Guide for NASA Managers and Practitioners'. Phased-mission based event trees and fault trees are used to model a lunar sortie mission of the CEV - involving the following phases: launch of a cargo vessel and a crew vessel; rendezvous of these two vessels in low Earth orbit; transit to th$: moon; lunar surface activities; ascension &om the lunar surface; and return to Earth. The analysis is based upon assumptions, preliminary system diagrams, and failure data that may involve large uncertainties or may lack formal validation. Furthermore, some of the data used were based upon expert judgment or extrapolated from similar components~systemsT. his paper includes a discussion of the system-level models and provides an overview of the analysis results used to identify insights into CEV risk drivers, and trade and sensitivity studies. Lastly, the PRA model was used to determine changes in risk as the system configurations or key parameters are modified

Risk Assessment Overview

Risk assessment is used in many industries to identify and manage risks. Initially developed for use on aeronautical and nuclear systems, risk assessment has been applied to transportation, chemical, computer, financial, and security systems among others. It is used to gain an understanding of the weaknesses or vulnerabilities in a system so modification can be made to increase operability, efficiency, and safety and to reduce failure and down-time. Risk assessment results are primary inputs to risk-informed decision making; where risk information including uncertainty is used along with other pertinent information to assist management in the decision-making process. Therefore, to be useful, a risk assessment must be directed at specific objectives. As the world embraces the globalization of trade and manufacturing, understanding the associated risk become important to decision making. Applying risk assessment techniques to a global system of development, manufacturing, and transportation can provide insight into how the system can fail, the likelihood of system failure and the consequences of system failure. The risk assessment can identify those elements that contribute most to risk and identify measures to prevent and mitigate failures, disruptions, and damaging outcomes. In addition, risk associated with public and environment impact can be identified. The risk insights gained can be applied to making decisions concerning suitable development and manufacturing locations, supply chains, and transportation strategies. While risk assessment has been mostly applied to mechanical and electrical systems, the concepts and techniques can be applied across other systems and activities. This paper provides a basic overview of the development of a risk assessment

Design Trade-Offs and Feasibility Assessment of a Novel One-Body, Laminated-Rotor Flywheel Switched Reluctance Machine

In a bid to respond to the challenges being faced in the installation of flywheel-based electric energy storage systems (EESSs) in customer-side facilities, namely high safety, high energy/power densities and low cost, research work towards the development of a novel, one-body, laminated-rotor flywheel, based on a switched reluctance machine (OBOLAR-Fly SR machine) is presented, where the laminated rotor provides both the energy storage and motor/generator functions. The one-body architecture improves compactness and robustness. Besides, the rotor’s laminated body ensures inherently high safety. From the design perspective, the rotor’s dual purpose causes the traditional electrical machines design aspects, such as power development, cooling, losses, torque ripple, etc., to clash with the typical requirements of a flywheel, namely in-vacuum operation and moment of inertia. This results in six main trade-offs to be addressed during the design process: rotor material, speed ratio, number of drive phases, split ratio, optimal vacuum level, and controller hysteresis band. A 60 kW, 2.2 kWh OBOLAR-Fly SR system is developed with a twofold objective: (1) provide an in-depth description of the six bespoke design trade-offs and give some useful guidelines to tackle them; (2) prove the OBOLAR-Fly concept and compare the prototype’s performance with the current state of the art flywheels. Preliminary experimental results prove the viability of the OBOLAR idea and show its competitiveness in terms of efficiency and power density. On the other hand, a gap in energy density to be filled in future research works is highlighted