Artemus Ward : The Gentle Humorist

It is generally accepted that during his lifetime, Mark Twain was considered the preeminent American master storyteller and lecturer of humor. The tsunami that is Twain’s literary achievement can easily overwhelm the earlier vast movement of the American literary scene that led to its creation. The “underwater earthquake” of this movement is Charles Farrar Browne, but his more famous pseudonym is Artemus Ward. While there were earlier as well as contemporary humorous writers, Artemus Ward was regarded by William Dean Howells as “the humorist who first gave the world a taste of the humor that characterizes the whole American people” (Pullen 26). In fact, New Jersey’s own American novelist and short story writer Albert Payson Terhune commemorates Ward as “the man ‘who taught Americans to laugh’” (Nock 9). Indeed, in 1862, President Lincoln laughed heartily while he read to his Cabinet passages from Ward’s first book. Ward’s uniqueness in telling a story from the lecture platform enthralled thousands throughout the United States and in Canada; he was also “the first deadpan comedian to take England by storm” (Austin, Ward 19). Despite these views, today Ward’s literary reputation is largely forgotten. Yet he was distinctive and influential in the American tradition of his day and is deserving of study. This thesis will analyze the construction of his literary reputation by showing that what made Ward so popular in his time was that his literary humor was rhetorically gentle. This is seen through his numerous fictitious letters to the Cleveland Daily Plain Dealer. Vanity Fair and reprinted largely throughout the country. The success of his humorous letters was displayed in a character that exuded confidence without conceit, and whose observations of contemporary issues contained neither sarcasm nor malice. He did not allow himself to be emotionally caught up in his humor. His satiric wit was enjoyed by all of its targets. Furthermore, Ward parlayed the success of his nationally published letters into a commercially successful career as the first comedic lecturer to tour the nation. In his time, Ward achieved a fascinating dichotomy with his genial humor. His letters to the Plain Dealer showed a very confident, middle-aged, pot-bellied P.T. Bamum-like character of a traveling tent show of unusual animals and wax figures, and who used humorous misspellings then in vogue to “comment” on a variety of topics. However, his lectures, billed as “Artemus Ward Speaks a Piece,” startled audiences that saw instead the real Charles Ferrar Browne, a gaunt young man of twenty-seven who dressed quite distinctively and spoke very formally in a humorous stream of consciousness with a seriousness of expression (Pullen 46). A full appreciation of Ward’s humor requires this thesis to be divided into three parts, with Parts II and III being the bulk. Part I will be extremely brief, though necessary in the construction of his literary reputation in his short life of thirty-three years, solely as it developed and influenced his humor. This part’s focus will be on historically pertinent references to the native American humor as it affected his humor during his lifetime. During his lifetime, Ward wrote Artemus Ward, His Book (1862) and Artemus Ward; His Travels (1865). His executors published three works posthumously: Artemus Ward in London, and Other Papers (1867), Artemus Ward’s Panorama. (As exhibited at the Egyptian Hall, London! (1869), and The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, (1898). Part II will critically analyze his literary reputation in selected letters from these works and will historicize his rhetorically gentle humor that “commented” on such topics as politics, reform movements, the Civil War, and some of our various human foibles. Part III will examine his lecture techniques as reasons for the commercial success of his humor. Ward’s innate sense of aesthetic humor was natural and was closely allied with his extraordinary rapport with his lecture audiences (Austin, Ward 72). His success as a lecturer included the deliberate uses of “mock gravity, the look of innocent surprise when the audience laughed, the anticlimaxes, pauses, non sequiturs, and wanderings of thought” which delighted his spectators everywhere (Pullen 94). Lastly, though his humor was natural, he altered it for successful appearances on the lecture circuit through deliberate and methodical preparation in delivery

Program Semantics in Model-Based WCET Analysis: A State of the Art Perspective

Advanced design techniques of safety-critical applications use specialized development model based methods. Under this setting, the application exists at several levels of description, as the result of a sequence of transformations. On the positive side, the application is developed in a systematic way, while on the negative side, its high-level semantics may be obfuscated when represented at the lower levels. The application should provide certain functional and non-functional guarantees. When the application is a hard real-time program, such guarantees could be deadlines, thus making the computation of worst-case execution time (WCET) bounds mandatory. This paper overviews, in the context of WCET analysis, what are the existing techniques to extract, express and exploit the program semantics along the model-based development workflow

Synthesis and Structure of a Dimercapto - Iron(III) Porphyrin Derivative: | Fe(SC6HF4)2TPP | | Na c 18C6|, C6H6

A low-spin di-mercapto-iron(IIl)-meso-tetraphenylporphyrin complex, I Fe(SC5HF4)2TPP 11Nac18C6 I, C5H5 has been synthesized. This compound presents in the solid state a d type hyperspectrum with a split Soret ba-nd at 383 and 461 nm. The crystals belong to the triclinic system space group Pl with a= 12.628(4), b = 21.594(8), c = 12.881(4) A, a = 104.02(2), fJ = 98.26(2), y = 76.40(2) 0, V = 3298 A3, Z = 2. Pertinent structural parameters include relatively long equatorial Fe-Np bond distances of 1.998(3) A and relatively short axial Fe- S bond distances of 2.312(1) A. The structures of the two centrosymmetric crystallographically independent I Fe(SC5HF4)2TPP 1- anions are essentially identical

Représenter des mobiliers complexes grâce à la 3D

Le mobilier lithique de grandes dimensions, lourd et encombrant, est particulièrement complexe à relever. Il doit néanmoins être représenté dans son contexte, notamment par rapport au plan horizontal [ill. 1], mais également en vue géométrale selon sa morphologie. De toutes les méthodes disponibles, la modélisation 3D paraît la plus appropriée et simplifie la réalisation de cette documentation. Par ailleurs, le souci d’accessibilité des vestiges ne s’explique pas seulement par le caractère de..

La protéine majeure de la capside de l’HSV-1 est ubiquitinée

Le virus de l’Herpès simplex de type 1 (HSV-1) est le pathogène humain responsable des lésions herpétiques labiales, plus communément appelé « feux sauvages ». Annuellement, il est responsable de plusieurs cas d’encéphalites et d’infections de l’appareil visuel qui sont la principale cause de cécité en Amérique du Nord. Bien qu’il existe quelques traitements antiviraux, aucun vaccin ou médicament ne permet de prévenir ou de guérir les infections causées par ce virus. Aujourd’hui, les infections produites par l’HSV-1 sont présentes partout sur la planète. Récemment, une étude en protéomique effectuée sur les virus matures extracellulaires a permis d’identifier la présence d’ubiquitines libres et d’enzymes reliées à la machinerie d’ubiquitination dans le virus. De plus, le virus exploite cette machinerie au cours de l’infection. Il est connu que certaines protéines virales sont ubiquitinées durant une infection et que le virus imite même certaines enzymes d’ubiquitination. Nous avons donc entrepris des recherches afin d’identifier des protéines virales ubiquitinées qui pourraient être présentes dans les virus matures ainsi que leurs rôles potentiels. La protéine majeure de la capside, VP5, un constituant très important du virus, a été identifiée. Nos recherches nous ont permis de caractériser le type d’ubiquitination, une monoubiquitination sur les lysines K810 et/ou K1275 de VP5. Le rôle que pourrait jouer l’ubiquitination de VP5 dans le cycle de réplication virale et dans les virus matures n’est toutefois pas encore connu.Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) is the human pathogen responsible for herpetic lesion such as cold sores. On a yearly basis, it is responsible for many cases of encephalitis and infections of the eye that are the most common cause of blindness in North America. Antiviral treatments exist, but no vaccines or drugs are able to prevent or cure the diseases caused by this virus. Today, infections caused by HSV-1 are present all around the world. Recently a proteomics approach was used to study mature extracellular viruses. This study highlighted the presence in the virus of free ubiquitin and ubiquitin related enzymes. Furthermore, the virus exploits this machinery during the course of infection. Also, it is known that certain virally encoded proteins are ubiquitinated and that the virus mimics some ubiquitin related enzymes. Our researches focused on identifying ubiquitinated viral proteins that could be present in mature extracellular viruses and their potential roles. The major capsid protein, VP5, an important virus component, was identified. We characterised the type of ubiquitination, a monoubiquitination of lysine K810 and/or K1275 of VP5. The role that could play the ubiquitination of VP5 in the viral cell cycle and in mature virions has yet to be identified

Field Immune Assessment during Simulated Planetary Exploration in the Canadian Arctic

Dysregulation of the immune system has been shown to occur during space flight, although the detailed nature of the phenomenon and the clinical risks for exploration class missions has yet to be established. In addition, the growing clinical significance of immune system evaluation combined with epidemic infectious disease rates in third world countries provides a strong rationale for the development of field-compatible clinical immunology techniques and equipment. In July 2002 NASA performed a comprehensive field immunology assessment on crewmembers participating in the Haughton-Mars Project (HMP) on Devon Island in the high Canadian Arctic. The purpose of the study was to evaluate mission-associated effects on the human immune system, as well as to evaluate techniques developed for processing immune samples in remote field locations. Ten HMP-2002 participants volunteered for the study. A field protocol was developed at NASA-JSC for performing sample collection, blood staining/processing for immunophenotype analysis, wholeblood mitogenic culture for functional assessments and cell-sample preservation on-location at Devon Island. Specific assays included peripheral leukocyte distribution; constitutively activated T cells, intracellular cytokine profiles and plasma EBV viral antibody levels. Study timepoints were L-30, midmission and R+60. The protocol developed for immune sample processing in remote field locations functioned properly. Samples were processed in the field location, and stabilized for subsequent analysis at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. The data indicated that some phenotype, immune function and stress hormone changes occurred in the HMP field participants that were largely distinct from pre-mission baseline and post-mission recovery data. These immune changes appear similar to those observed in Astronauts following spaceflight. The sample processing protocol developed for this study may have applications for immune assessment during exploration-class space missions or in remote terrestrial field locations. The data validate the use of the HMP as a ground-based spaceflight/planetary exploration analog for some aspects of human physiology

Analytical and practical analysis of frictional-kinetic model for dense and dilute gas-solid flows

In granular flows, when the solid volume fraction is large, the dynamic behaviour of particles becomes controlled by frictional effects. Theoretically these effects can not be taken into account in an Eulerian approach, based on the kinetic theory of granular flows, because the inter-particle contact times are long. However, in the literature several empirical models have been proposed which introduce a frictional pressure and viscosity. In the paper, these models are first compared on a simple case of sheared dense granular flows in order to analyze the individual behavior of each model. Second, the models have been implemented in an Eulerian solver and numerical simulations have been performed of an experiment of bin discharge. The results show that for large diameter, the solid mass flow rate is well predicted, while it is systematically underestimated when the ratio between the injector diameter and the diameter of particles is small

Model of aggregation of solid particles in nonwetting liquid medium

International audienceProblem of modelling solid particles aggregation in non-wetting liquids is in close relation with the problem of interactions between hydrophobic particles in water. Hydrophobic aggregation is discussed from a thermodynamic point of view, then the main aspects of aggregation dynamics are envisaged in the particular conditions created by non-wetting. Consequences on aggregation and fragmentation kernels are studied. An experimental illustration is provided

La brique crue, matériau par défaut ou choix éclairé ?

La fouille du site de Mours (Val-d’Oise) a mis au jour deux fours de tuilier antiques. Leurs architectures constituées en partie en brique crue soulèvent plusieurs questions quant aux choix des matériaux et à leur mise en œuvre. Une analyse des atouts et contraintes de chaque élément de la construction permet de mettre en avant les qualités techniques du matériau terre qu’il soit cru ou cuit.The excavations of Mours (Val-d’Oise) have revealed two Roman tile kilns. They were partly made of mud bricks and this raises questions about the choice and use of this material. The examination of the advantages and limitations of the components used in the construction of these kilns provides insights into the technical attributes of fired and unfired clay.La excavación del sitio de Mours (departamento de Valle del Oise) dejó al descubierto dos hornos tejeros antiguos. Sus arquitecturas, constituidas en parte por ladrillos de barro, llevan a cuestionarse acerca de la elección de los materiales y sobre su uso. Un análisis de las ventajas y desventajas de cada elemento de la construcción ha permitido destacar las cualidades técnicas del material tierra, ya sea cruda o cocida