The Ring and the book : texts, and the texture of experience : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English at Massey University

The following discussion of The Ring and the Book suggests that the primary concern of the poem is with language. Chapter One of the discussion attempts to lay a broad base for the relation of language to the poem. It takes the form of a prelude intro­ducing the later chapters and suggests that the overriding concern with language includes the poem, itself, as a linguistic construct. A dis­tinction is drawn between the language of ordinary discourse, which is the immediate subject of the poem, and the language of artistic dis­course, which is the medium of the poem, but which in turn becomes the subject of consideration. The interpenetration of subject and medium, it is suggested, res­ults from Browning's recognition that language is a temporal and ongoing process, and that, therefore, a prior, static truth cannot be conclus ively expressed in language. Rather, art may embrace the processional nature of ordinary discourse within the context of artistic discourse, in order to provide a structure of "the experience of experience". Chapter Two suggests that Browning's method of foregrounding the relationship between language and experience is one of a disruptive juxtaposition of texts. Such a method demonstrates how the style of representation conditions, and supplants, experience: how the medium supplants the subject. Book I, it is argued, becomes an implicit and explicit education in how to read The Ring and the Book, functioning as a paradigm for the later monologues. The discussion of Book I is central to this study; the method of the poem, and the concerns that method foregrounds, are established in Book I (a section of the poem that is rarely discussed in any detail). Primarily, the disruptive texts of Book I dramatise the author fragmen­ting the "whole" story into stylistically conflicting representations; the fragmentation disrupts the conclusiveness implicit in any represen­tation. The "story", or narrative, becomes displaced, and the poem becomes, rather, a cumulative ongoing texture of linguistic representations. Chapter Three considers the problem of climax in a disruptive play of texts. In Book X and Book XI, the language of ordinary discourse in the poem reaches what I would term a plateau of linguistic intensities: the Pope and Guido become the disruptively juxtaposed poles between which the other characters inhabit the world through language. Chapter Three provides a link between the discussion of Book I and the discussion of Book XII which concludes this study. Chapter Four argues that the plateau of linguistic intensities reached in Book X and Book XI is maintained in Book XII. Browning, firstly, includes in his poem the truth of the negative intensity of language: that it is the temporal medium by which experience dis­sipates, even as that experience unfolds in language. The completing intensity of language in the poem, however, is the presence of the implied author in Book XII. The language of artistic discourse counters the limitations and fallibilities of the language of ordinary discourse, not by escaping, or being conclusively above, those limitations, but by embodying them in a true way. The artistic discourse therefore becomes a processional embodiment of truth, from which a conclusive truth may not be separated

A case series of an off-the-shelf online health resource with integrated nurse coaching to support self-management in COPD

Background: COPD has significant psychosocial impact. Self-management support improves quality of life, but programs are not universally available. IT-based self-management interventions can provide home-based support, but have mixed results. We conducted a case series of an off-the-shelf Internet-based health-promotion program, The Preventive Plan (TPP), coupled with nurse-coach support, which aimed to increase patient activation and provide self-management benefits. Materials and methods: A total of 19 COPD patients were recruited, and 14 completed 3-month follow-up in two groups: groups 1 and 2 with more and less advanced COPD, respectively. Change in patient activation was determined with paired t-tests and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests. Benefits and user experience were explored in semistructured interviews, analyzed thematically. Results: Only group 1 improved significantly in activation, from a lower baseline than group 2; group 1 also improved significantly in mastery and anxiety. Both groups felt significantly more informed about COPD and reported physical functioning improvements. Group 1 reported improvements in mood and confidence. Overall, group 2 reported fewer benefits than group 1. Both groups valued nurse-coach support; for group 1, it was more important than TPP in building confidence to self-manage. The design of TPP and lack of motivation to use IT were barriers to use, but disease severity and poor IT skills were not. Discussion: Our findings demonstrate the feasibility of combining nurse-coach support aligned to an Internet-based health resource, TPP, in COPD and provide learning about the challenges of such an approach and the importance of the nurse-coach role

The Physics of the FIR-Radio Correlation: II. Synchrotron Emission as a Star-Formation Tracer in High-Redshift Galaxies

We construct one-zone steady-state models of cosmic ray (CR) injection, cooling, and escape over the entire dynamic range of the FIR-radio correlation (FRC), from normal galaxies to starbursts, over the redshift interval 0 <= z <= 10. Normal galaxies with low star-formation rates become radio-faint at high z, because Inverse Compton (IC) losses off the CMB cool CR electrons and positrons rapidly, suppressing their nonthermal radio emission. However, we find that this effect occurs at higher redshifts than previously expected, because escape, bremsstrahlung, ionization, and starlight IC losses act to counter this effect and preserve the radio luminosity of galaxies. The radio dimming of star-forming galaxies at high z is not just a simple competition between magnetic field energy density and the CMB energy density; the CMB must also compete with every other loss process. We predict relations for the critical redshift when radio emission is significantly suppressed compared to the z ~ 0 FRC as a function of star-formation rate per unit area. Additionally, we provide a quantitative explanation for the relative radio brightness of some high-z submillimeter galaxies. We show that at fixed star formation rate surface density, galaxies with larger CR scale heights are radio bright with respect to the FRC, because of weaker bremsstrahlung and ionization losses compared to compact starbursts. We predict that these "puffy starbursts" should have steeper radio spectra than compact galaxies with the same star-formation rate surface density. We find that radio bright submillimeter galaxies alone cannot explain the excess radio emission reported by ARCADE2, but they may significantly enhance the diffuse radio background with respect to a naive application of the z ~ 0 FRC.Comment: Published in Ap

Auditory cortex activation to natural speech and simulated cochlear implant speech measured with functional near-infrared spectroscopy

The primary goal of most cochlear implant procedures is to improve a patient’s ability to discriminate speech. To accomplish this, cochlear implants are programmed so as to maximize speech understanding. However, programming a cochlear implant can be an iterative, labor-intensive process that takes place over months. In this study, we sought to determine whether functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), a non-invasive neuroimaging method which is safe to use repeatedly and for extended periods of time, can provide an objective measure of whether a subject is hearing normal speech or distorted speech. We used a 140 channel fNIRS system to measure activation within the auditory cortex in 19 normal hearing subjects while they listed to speech with different levels of intelligibility. Custom software was developed to analyze the data and compute topographic maps from the measured changes in oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin concentration. Normal speech reliably evoked the strongest responses within the auditory cortex. Distorted speech produced less region-specific cortical activation. Environmental sounds were used as a control, and they produced the least cortical activation. These data collected using fNIRS are consistent with the fMRI literature and thus demonstrate the feasibility of using this technique to objectively detect differences in cortical responses to speech of different intelligibility

A gestural repertoire of 1-2year old human children : in search of the ape gestures

This project was made possible with the generous financial help of the Baverstock Bequest to the Psychology and Neuroscience Department at the University of St Andrews.When we compare human gestures to those of other apes, it looks at first like there is nothing much to compare at all. In adult humans, gestures are thought to be a window into the thought processes accompanying language, and sign languages are equal to spoken language with all of its features. While some research firmly emphasises the difference between human gestures and those of other apes, the question about whether there are any commonalities has rarely been investigated, and is mostly confined to pointing gestures. The gestural repertoires of nonhuman ape species have been carefully studied and described with regard to their form and function – but similar approaches are much rarer in the study of human gestures. This paper applies the methodology commonly used in the study of nonhuman ape gestures to the gestural communication of human children in their second year of life. We recorded (n=13) children’s gestures in a natural setting with peers and caregivers in Germany and Uganda. Children employed 52 distinct gestures, 46 (89%) of which are present in the chimpanzee repertoire. Like chimpanzees, they used them both singly, and in sequences; and employed individual gestures flexibly towards different goals.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Communication and language development in deaf and hearing infants

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:D063013 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Interventions and outcomes of health and social care service provision for people with severe mental illness in England

Mental health policy in England is undergoing radical change involving the integration of services aimed at improving outcomes for patients. At the same time, there is limited evidence about how conventional services are performing. The present paper reports data on the services provided and short-term outcomes achieved in eight community services in England