Repetition in Old Norse Eddic Poetry: Poetic Style, Voice, and Desire

This thesis examines the use of repetition as a poetic device in Old Norse Eddic verse from a primarily stylistic point of view. Previous studies have noted the prominence of repetition as a feature of Eddic poetry, but without engaging in an in-depth analysis of the use and significance of Eddic repetition as this thesis does. The analysis begins at the level of syntax in the Eddic strophe, establishing in the first place the syntactic formulae that constitute the most basic building blocks of repetition in Eddic poetry, focusing closely on individual lines and strophes from a broad range of texts. From there the analysis follows the increasing complexity of Eddic repetition, moving from pure syntax to the use of deictic markers in dialogic repetition, as well as the distinct yet clearly related style of repetition of individual words in Eddic poems. These strands of analysis are finally synthesized in the examination of the sophisticated programs of repetition in certain individual poems, particularly Skírnismál and Vǫlundarkviða. Through an analysis of the stylistic structure of repetition in these texts, a completely new reading and fresh understanding of them is possible. The methodological basis of the thesis is close reading and linguistic and stylistic analysis, with extensive reference to a wide range of linguistic, literary, and critical theory. Methodological sources have been selected on the basis of their usefulness to the task at hand rather than the validation of a wider methodological program, and the results provide a productive interrogation both of existing scholarship on Eddic poetry and of the assumptions of the methodological sources. The result is a new understanding of the source material as well as a valuable addition to the study of verbal art in general

“Mysterious figures”: character and characterisation in the work of Virginia Woolf

This thesis argues for a reading of Virginia Woolf’s work based on notions of character and characterisation as a primary interpretative perspective. The bulk of Woolf scholarship, particularly in recent years, has not been directed towards the study of character, due to both general theoretical discomfort with the category of character, and a sense that Woolf’s work in particular, as that of a feminist and modernist writer, may not respond well to traditional readings of character. However, Woolf’s exploration of the human self and its relations with other people is best understood by looking at her formal experiments in characterisation. Her writing was consistently engaged with questions of character, as an examination of her early journalism makes clear. In the years before the publication of her first novel, Woolf articulated a broad theory of character in her reviews of contemporary literature and in essays on Gissing and Dostoyevsky. In The Voyage Out, Woolf began a writing career of experiment in character, examining a continuum of character ranging from complete nonidentification to a consuming over-identification. A key element here is the introduction of the notion of the Theophrastan type as an alternative form of fictional characterisation that corresponds to a way of knowing real people. In Jacob’s Room, Woolf continued to focus on the speculative nature of characterisation and its demands for imaginative identification demonstrated by her short story collection Monday & Tuesday. The importance of this issue is clear from the debates she engaged in with Arnold Bennett during the 1920s, a debate re-framed in this paper as focussing on characterisation. Jacob’s Room initiates a quest for an elusive ‘essence’ of character that may, or may not, exist outside of the structuring forms of social life, and may or may not be accessible through speculative imaginative identification. This elusive essence of character is a primary focus of Mrs. Dalloway, a novel which explores the ways the self can be shaped under social pressures into more permanent and stable structures. This is explored in the novel in a series of metaphors circling around treasure and jewels. While alert to the role of exterior factors, including time and memory, the novel maintains at least the possibility that some more internal form of the self exists and can be represented in fiction. This possibility is explored further in Woolf’s short story cycle Mrs. Dalloway’s Party, and leads into To the Lighthouse’s study of character and its ability to represent essential or internal aspects of self, the self as it exists in relation to other selves, and ultimately a projected or created version of character that reconciles this complexity. This is again carried out through the use of a extensive chain of metaphors which function symbolically in the text, and through a meditation on the nature of the relationship between real people and their fictional counterparts. While the novel offers no clear resolution, it gestures towards a type of characterisation, and hence a type of relationship, based on limited understanding and acceptance. This notion is picked up in The Waves, a novel which both explores the continuity of the self as represented by character over time - something that is also important in The Years - and explores the ways that characters can be represented and the implications this has for the types of unity that can, for good or for ill, be achieved. Again, a notion of a limited character, closer in form to caricature than to the whole and rounded characters often associated with Woolf, is proposed by the novel as a possible solution to the problem of character. In Woolf’s last two novels, The Years and Between the Acts, many of these themes reappear, and Woolf simultaneously situates her characters more firmly than ever in a comprehensible physical and social context, and uses them to explore areas where language and rationality cease to function

Modeling the impact of changing patient transportation systems on peri-operative process performance in a large hospital: insights from a computer simulation study

Transportation of patients is a key hospital operational activity. During a large construction project, our patient admission and prep area will relocate from immediately adjacent to the operating room suite to another floor of a different building. Transportation will require extra distance and elevator trips to deliver patients and recycle transporters (specifically: personnel who transport patients). Management intuition suggested that starting all 52 first cases simultaneously would require many of the 18 available elevators. To test this, we developed a data-driven simulation tool to allow decision makers to simultaneously address planning and evaluation questions about patient transportation. We coded a stochastic simulation tool for a generalized model treating all factors contributing to the process as JAVA objects. The model includes elevator steps, explicitly accounting for transporter speed and distance to be covered. We used the model for sensitivity analyses of the number of dedicated elevators, dedicated transporters, transporter speed and the planned process start time on lateness of OR starts and the number of cases with serious delays (i.e., more than 15 min). Allocating two of the 18 elevators and 7 transporters reduced lateness and the number of cases with serious delays. Additional elevators and/or transporters yielded little additional benefit. If the admission process produced ready-for-transport patients 20 min earlier, almost all delays would be eliminated. Modeling results contradicted clinical managers’ intuition that starting all first cases on time requires many dedicated elevators. This is explained by the principle of decreasing marginal returns for increasing capacity when there are other limiting constraints in the system.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (DMS-0732175)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (CMMI-0846554)United States. Air Force Office of Scientific Research (FA9550-08-1-0369)Singapore-MIT AllianceMassachusetts Institute of Technology. Buschbaum Research Fund

Increased telomere attrition following renal transplantation: impact of anti-metabolite therapy

Background: The uremic milieu exposes chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients to premature ageing processes. The impact of renal replacement therapy (dialysis and renal transplantation [RTx]) or immunosuppressive treatment regimens on ageing biomarkers has scarcely been studied. Methods: In this study telomere length in whole blood cells was measured in 49 dialysis patients and 47 RTx patients close to therapy initiation and again after 12 months. Forty-three non-CKD patients were included as controls. Results: Non-CKD patients had significantly (P <= 0.01) longer telomeres than CKD patients. Telomere attrition after 12 months was significantly greater in RTx patients compared to dialysis patients (P = 0.008). RTx patients receiving mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) had a greater (P = 0.007) degree of telomere attrition compared to those treated with azathioprine. After 12 months, folate was significantly higher in RTx patients than in dialysis patients (P < 0.0001), whereas the opposite was true for homocysteine (P < 0.0001). The azathioprine group had lower levels of folate after 12 months than the MMF group (P = 0.003). Conclusions: The associations between immunosuppressive therapy, telomere attrition, and changes in folate indicate a link between methyl donor potential, immunosuppressive drugs, and biological ageing. The hypothesis that the increased telomere attrition, observed in the MMF group after RTx, is driven by the immunosuppressive treatment, deserves further attention

La construction de l’obésité dans l’espace public Suédois

Partant du constat que l’espace public n’a pas nécessairement toujours un rapport explicite avec les idéaux civiques, et que les médias ont la responsabilité d’accompagner les publics dans des choix pouvant influer sur leur santé, cette contribution étudie la manière dont la presse quotidienne présente le thème de l’excès de poids (ou obésité) en Suède. Après une prise en compte des multiples perspectives de recherche concernant le problème de l’obésité, deux cadrages dominants de la construction de l’obésité sont ensuite traités (raison et rationalité, émotions et affects). Enfin, l’importance du genre (masculin/féminin) et l’opposition structurante divertissement vs information dans la construction médiatique du surpoids sont analysées. Au terme de cette étude se dessinent les difficultés d’une collaboration fructueuse entre journalistes et membres des professions médicales sur le problème de l’obésité. Pourtant, « It takes two to tango » [Il faut être deux pour danser le tango]. Médecins et chercheurs doivent mieux adapter leurs manières de s’adresser au public et apprendre comment collaborer avec les journalistes de façon productive. Mais journalistes et médias ont aussi une responsabilité : si le public fait davantage confiance aux professionnels de la santé en ce qui concerne leur information, ce n’est pas de ceux-ci que les individus reçoivent l’information, mais bien des médias.Stating that the public sphere has still inevitably no explicit relationship with the civic ideals and that the media are responsible for accompanying the public in choices which can influence their health, this article studies the way the daily press presents the theme of the weight excess (or obesity) in Sweden. After a consideration of the multiple research perspectives concerning the problem of the obesity, two dominant frames of the construction of the obesity are then handled (reason and rationality, feelings and affects). Finally, the importance of gender (masculine or feminine) and the opposition between entertainment and information in the media construction of the overweight are analyzed. In the term of this study are outlined the difficulties of a constructive collaboration between journalists and members of the medical professions on the problem of obesity. Nevertheless "it takes two to tango". Doctors and researchers have to better adapt their manners to address the public and learn how to collaborate with the journalists in a productive way. But journalists and media also have a responsibility: if the public relies more on the professionals of the health for his own information, it is not from those professionals that the individuals receive the information, but mainly from the media