The Gendered Soul: Victorian Women Autobiographers and the Novel

This project considers ways mid-Victorian fictional autobiographies created new models for women\u27s spiritual formation, testing Nancy Armstrong\u27s theory that novels are antecedent to the cultural conditions they describe. I pair three mid-Victorian fictional texts Jane Eyre, Aurora Leigh, and The Mill on the Floss with three later non-fictional autobiographies written by women near the end of the Victorian Era: Annie Besant (1847- 1933), Mary Anne Hearn (1834-1909) and Frances Power Cobbe (1822-1904). These women came to spiritual maturity during the same time period in which the fictional heroines Jane Eyre, Aurora Leigh and Maggie Tulliver became prominent in the popular imagination and informed the cultural dialogue about women\u27s roles and spirituality. With the advantage of hindsight, Besant, Hearn and Cobbe are able to offer perspective on cultural and religious trends that these novelists predicted, and they are also able to show how the models presented in novels did or did not correspond with the realities of women\u27s spiritual lives in Victorian England. To draw attention to ways that both the fictional and non-fictional autobiographies use the genre to convert readers to new beliefs about how and what women believe, I focus on the persuasive elements of the conversion narrative and read these texts through the lens of classical rhetorical appeals. By identifying the conversion experience as the common denominator in these diverse texts, I bring these examples of fictional and non-fictional autobiographies onto a level playing and demonstrate both the flexibility of the conversion narrative and the artistry of the non-fictional autobiographers in revising it. I find that the fictional autobiographers employ models of private introspection and substitute scenes of domestic reconciliation for traditional reconciliation with God; however, the three real-life autobiographers must reconcile their personal spiritual transformations with their public personae. Hence they replace the novels\u27 domestic allegories of reconciliation with accounts appropriate to their own new spiritual identities, ranging from Evangelical Christian, to Theist, to Theosophist

Effect of ontogenetic increases in body size on burst swimming performance in tadpoles of the striped marsh frog, Limnodynastes peronii

The effect of ontogenetic increases in total length on burst swimming performance was investigated in tadpoles of the striped marsh frog (Limnodynastes peronii) over the total-length range of 1.5-4 cm and Gosner developmental stages 25-38. The burst swimming performance of tadpoles at 10 degrees and 24 degrees C was determined by videotaping startle responses with a highspeed video camera at 200 Hz and analysing the sequences frame by frame. Maximum swimming velocity (U-max) and acceleration (A(max)) increased with total length (L) at a rate that was proportionally greater than the increase in total length (i.e., positive allometry; exponents >1) and was described by the allometric equations U-max = 0.061L(1.34) and A(max) =1.15L(1.11) at 10 degrees C and U-max = 0.114L(1.34) and A(max) = 1.54L(1.11) at 24 degrees C. Stride length increased with a total-length exponent of approximately 1 bur was unaffected by temperature. Tail-beat frequency was not affected by total length and increased from 7.8 +/- 0.2 Hz at 10 degrees C to 21.7 +/- 0.7 Hz at 24 degrees C. Developmental stage did not significantly influence the relationship between total length and U-max or A(max). Furthermore, temperature and the associated changes in water viscosity did not affect the relationship between total length and burst swimming performance. At their U-max, Reynolds numbers ranged from approximately 1,500 in the smaller tadpoles up to 50,000 for the larger animals at 24 degrees C We suggest the positive allometry of U-max in larval L. peronii was due in part to the increases in tail width (TW) with total length (TW= -1.36(1.66)), possibly reflecting the increasing importance of burst swimming performance to survival during larval development

Hanging drop crystal growth apparatus and method

An apparatus (10) is constructed having a cylindrical enclosure (16) within which a disc-shaped wicking element (18) is positioned. A well or recess (22) is cut into an upper side (24) of this wicking element, and a glass cover plate or slip (28) having a protein drop disposed thereon is sealably positioned on the wicking element (18), with drop (12) being positioned over well or recess (22). A flow of control fluid is generated by a programmable gradient former (16), with this control fluid having a vapor pressure that is selectively variable. This flow of control fluid is coupled to the wicking element (18) where control fluid vapor diffusing from walls (26) of the recess (22) is exposed to the drop (12), forming a vapor pressure gradient between the drop (12) and the control fluid vapor. Initially, this gradient is adjusted to draw solvent from the drop (12) at a relatively high rate, and as the critical supersaturation point is approached (the point at which crystal nucleation occurs), the gradient is reduced to more slowly draw solvent from the drop (12). This allows discrete protein molecules more time to orient themselves into an ordered crystalline lattice, producing protein crystals which, when processed by X-ray crystallography, possess a high degree of resolution

Simplifying and improving the extraction of nitrate from freshwater for stable isotope analyses

Determining the isotopic composition of nitrate (NO3_) in water can prove useful to identify NO3_ sources and to understand its dynamics in aquatic systems. Among the procedures available, the ‘ionexchange resin method’ involves extracting NO3_ from freshwater and converting it into solid silver nitrate (AgNO3), which is then analysed for 15N/14N and 18O/16O ratios. This study describes a simplified methodology where water was not pre-treated to remove dissolved organic carbon (DOC) or barium cations (added to precipitate O-bearing contaminants), which suited samples with high NO3_ ($400 mM or 25 mg L_1 NO3_) and low DOC (typically <417 mM of C or 5 mg L_1 C) levels. % N analysis revealed that a few AgNO3 samples were of low purity (compared with expected % N of 8.2), highlighting the necessity to introduce quality control/quality assurance procedures for silver nitrate prepared from field water samples. Recommendations are then made to monitor % N together with % O (expected at 28.6, i.e. 3.5 fold % N) in AgNO3 in order to better assess the type and gravity of the contamination as well as to identify potentially unreliable data

An evaluation of genotyping by sequencing (GBS) to map the <em>Breviaristatum-e (ari-e)</em> locus in cultivated barley

ABSTRACT: We explored the use of genotyping by sequencing (GBS) on a recombinant inbred line population (GPMx) derived from a cross between the two-rowed barley cultivar ‘Golden Promise’ (ari-e.GP/Vrs1) and the six-rowed cultivar ‘Morex’ (Ari-e/vrs1) to map plant height. We identified three Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL), the first in a region encompassing the spike architecture gene Vrs1 on chromosome 2H, the second in an uncharacterised centromeric region on chromosome 3H, and the third in a region of chromosome 5H coinciding with the previously described dwarfing gene Breviaristatum-e (Ari-e). BACKGROUND: Barley cultivars in North-western Europe largely contain either of two dwarfing genes; Denso on chromosome 3H, a presumed ortholog of the rice green revolution gene OsSd1, or Breviaristatum-e (ari-e) on chromosome 5H. A recessive mutant allele of the latter gene, ari-e.GP, was introduced into cultivation via the cv. ‘Golden Promise’ that was a favourite of the Scottish malt whisky industry for many years and is still used in agriculture today. RESULTS: Using GBS mapping data and phenotypic measurements we show that ari-e.GP maps to a small genetic interval on chromosome 5H and that alternative alleles at a region encompassing Vrs1 on 2H along with a region on chromosome 3H also influence plant height. The location of Ari-e is supported by analysis of near-isogenic lines containing different ari-e alleles. We explored use of the GBS to populate the region with sequence contigs from the recently released physically and genetically integrated barley genome sequence assembly as a step towards Ari-e gene identification. CONCLUSIONS: GBS was an effective and relatively low-cost approach to rapidly construct a genetic map of the GPMx population that was suitable for genetic analysis of row type and height traits, allowing us to precisely position ari-e.GP on chromosome 5H. Mapping resolution was lower than we anticipated. We found the GBS data more complex to analyse than other data types but it did directly provide linked SNP markers for subsequent higher resolution genetic analysis

Integrity test

79 leaves : ill. ; 29 cm.Includes abstract and appendices.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-72).The present study intended to develop a theoretically driven, personality-based measure of integrity based on previous research that found the strong relationship between a composite of conscientiousness, agreeableness, and emotional stability with integrity (Ones, Viswesvaran, & Schmitt, 1993). Ten items were drawn from an existing personality inventory (i.e., the Trait-self descriptive personality inventory; TSD-PI) used by the Canadian Forces (CF). Confirmatory factor analysis supported a stable three-factor structure for the scale with items corresponding to the three personality factors. The scale related to the Honesty-Humility scale of the HEXACO-PI (Lee & Ashton, 2004) and was unrelated to organizational commitment (Meyer & Allen, 1991). Hierarchical regression analyses provide evidence that the integrity scale predicts counterproductive work behaviour and job performance on the Basic Military Qualification course, over and above the 'Big 5' factors of the TSD-PI. Implications for use within the CF, study limitations, and direction for future research are discussed