The hidden faces of World War One: representing disfigurement in film.

This study uses a creative-critical-archival approach to construct the first British, feature-length screenplay depicting the experiences of facially-injured World War One servicemen: 'The Battalion of Dandelions.' This screenplay is an historical war drama, written in the form of a shooting script and informed by archival, filmic and theoretical studies. Its narrative is inspired by research into the experiences of a small number of the 60,500 British servicemen who suffered facial injuries during World War One. Facial injury was viewed as one of the strongest symbolic manifestations of the ‘horror’ of the Great War. A century later, this study has been conducted in the context of a British World War One film genre that has, thus far, omitted facial injury as a primary subject, and a film culture that has repeatedly reinforced disfigurement as belonging to an aesthetic of horror. 'The Battalion of Dandelions' challenges this using cinematic devices, including shot scale, focus and sound, chosen in order to encourage audience members to slow down their perceptions and reconsider their responses to techniques used to signal monstrosity. Elements of trauma theory and haptic cinema are also included in The Battalion of Dandelions to encourage a stronger connection between character and viewer. 'Hiroshima mon amour' (1959) and 'A Quiet Place' (2018) are particularly strong studies in the deployment of narrative and cinematic devices to represent the unrepresentable and elicit empathy from the viewer. The deep-rooted existence of visual prejudice is beginning to be challenged within our society. This thesis offers an original contribution to knowledge by outlining how film can play a significant part in supporting a humanised aesthetic of disfigurement, whilst filling a gap within British film culture concerning the commemoration of the facially-injured servicemen of World War One

The Black Bull: Exploring Celtic Mythology And Romance Fiction Tropes Through A Historical Fantasy Novella

The Black Bull is a historical fantasy novella set in late eighteenth-century Ireland. It explores traditional Irish folklore and a common romance fiction trope through a feminist lens. Claire Featherfew, a sensible young woman not quite young enough to be unmarried, works as a book-binder for the taciturn Mr. Collins for the better part of a year before he proposes to her. She accepts and continues restoring his large collection of fairy-tales and books of folklore. Mr. Collins is secretive about the great black bull that has long been regarded as the pride of Collins Manor. Claire’s curiosity gets the better of her, and she uncovers a secret about Mr. Collins and the bull. She makes a difficult choice, and finds herself contending with wild, perilous creatures she thought only existed in the pages of her fiancé’s books. The Black Bull addresses a common trope in both classic and contemporary fiction: the aloof but handsome bachelor whose prickly (and frequently abusive) behavior the heroine endures before redeeming him with her love. Most of the time, these stories also have a significant power imbalance between the brooding male love interest and the heroine. From Hades and Persephone and Jane Eyre’s Mr. Rochester to modern Byronic heroes like Uprooted’s Sarkan (not to mention the endless adaptations of Beauty and the Beast), it is clear that this trope continues to fascinate and entertain readers. The Black Bull simultaneously embraces and subverts this trope

Dark spinor inflation -- theory primer and dynamics

Inflation driven by a single dark spinor field is discussed. We define the notion of a dark spinor field and derive the cosmological field equations for such a matter source. The conditions for inflation are determined and an exactly solvable model is presented. We find the power spectrum of the quantum fluctuation of this field and compare the results with scalar field inflation.Comment: 13 pages; typo in Eq. (12) corrected, minor improvement

Two Component Model of Dark Energy

We consider the possibility that the dark energy is made up of two or more independent components, each having a different equation of state. We fit the model with supernova and gamma-ray burst (GRB) data from resent observations, and use the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) technique to estimate the allowed parameter regions. We also use various model selection criteria to compare the two component model with the LCDM, one component dark energy model with static or variable w(XCDM), and with other multi-component models. We find that the two component models can give reasonably good fit to the current data. For some data sets, and depending somewhat on the model selection criteria, the two component model can give better fit to the data than XCDM with static w and XCDM with variable w parameterized by w = w_0 + w_az/(1+z).Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, 3 tables; Version accepted by PR

Can Inflation be Falsified?

Despite its central role in modern cosmology, doubts are often expressed as to whether cosmological inflation is really a falsifiable theory. We distinguish two facets of inflation, one as a theory of initial conditions for the hot big bang and the other as a model for the origin of structure in the Universe. We argue that the latter can readily be excluded by observations, and that there are also a number of ways in which the former can find itself in conflict with observational data. Both aspects of the theory are indeed falsifiable.Comment: 7 pages LaTeX file with two figures incorporated by epsf. Fifth Prize in Gravity Research Foundation Essay Competition. To appear, General Relativity and Gravitatio

Inflation during oscillations of the inflaton

Damour and Mukhanov have recently devised circumstances in which inflation may continue during the oscillatory phase which ensues once the inflaton field reaches the minimum of its potential. We confirm the existence of this phenomenon by numerical integration. In such circumstances the quantification of the amount of inflation requires particular care. We use a definition based on the decrease of the comoving Hubble length, and show that Damour and Mukhanov overestimated the amount of inflation occurring. We use the numerical calculations to check the validity of analytic approximations.Comment: 5 pages RevTeX file with 5 figures incorporated using eps

Hybrid vehicle assessment. Phase 1: Petroleum savings analysis

The results of a comprehensive analysis of near term electric hybrid vehicles are presented, with emphasis on their potential to save significant amounts of petroleum on a national scale in the 1990s. Performance requirements and expected annual usage patterns of these vehicles are first modeled. The projected U.S. fleet composition is estimated, and conceptual hybrid vehicle designs are conceived and analyzed for petroleum use when driven in the expected annual patterns. These petroleum consumption estimates are then compared to similar estimates for projected 1990 conventional vehicles having the same performance and driven in the same patterns. Results are presented in the form of three utility functions and comparisons of sevral conceptual designs are made. The Hybrid Vehicle (HV) design and assessment techniques are discussed and a general method is explained for selecting the optimum energy management strategy for any vehicle mission battery combination. Conclusions and recommendations are presented, and development recommendations are identified

Future fuels and engines for railroad locomotives. Volume 1: Summary

The potential for reducing the dependence of railroads on petroleum fuel, particularly Diesel No. 2 was investigated. Two approaches are studied: (1) to determine how the use of Diesel No. 2 can be reduced through increased efficiency and conservation, and (2) to use fuels other than Diesel No. 2 both in Diesel and other types of engines. Because synthetic hydrocarbon fuels are particularly suited to medium speed diesel engines, the first commercial application of these fuels may be by the railroad industry

Conditions for Successful Extended Inflation

We investigate, in a model-independent way, the conditions required to obtain a satisfactory model of extended inflation in which inflation is brought to an end by a first-order phase transition. The constraints are that the correct present strength of the gravitational coupling is obtained, that the present theory of gravity is satisfactorily close to general relativity, that the perturbation spectra from inflation are compatible with large scale structure observations and that the bubble spectrum produced at the phase transition doesn't conflict with the observed level of microwave background anisotropies. We demonstrate that these constraints can be summarized in terms of the behaviour in the conformally related Einstein frame, and can be compactly illustrated graphically. We confirm the failure of existing models including the original extended inflation model, and construct models, albeit rather contrived ones, which satisfy all existing constraints.Comment: 8 pages RevTeX file with one figure incorporated (uses RevTeX and epsf). Also available by e-mailing ARL, or by WWW at http://star-www.maps.susx.ac.uk/papers/infcos_papers.html; Revised to include extra references, results unchanged, to appear Phys Rev