862 research outputs found

    International migration: local conditions and effects

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    Male prostitution and the homoerotic sex-market in Early Modern England

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    This thesis explores male prostitution in early modern culture and calls for a reconsideration of linguistic representations of sodomy and homoeroticism in literary and historical criticism. It argues that as a variant expression of homoeroticism, its examination unfolds significant ideological and cultural implications for established perceptions of male relations. As instructed by classical textuality and misogynistic stigmatization of prostitution, the boy prostitute becomes a relational category that eludes easy classification, emerging syntactically alongside the female whore in English culture. Adopting a social constructionist approach, this dissertation traces male prostitution’s ambivalent representational properties in various genres and discourses, namely poetry, plays, historical narratives, theatre historiography, defamation accounts, philosophical diatribes and lexicography. The diverse vocabulary employed to describe homoerotic relations and identities is closely scrutinised in order to expose the metaphoricity and ambiguity embedded in such terms as ‘Ganymede’, ‘ingle’, ‘mignon’ and ‘catamite’. An analysis of the terminology demonstrates the ways in which discursive systems of language, within specific historical and cultural contexts, have facilitated the concomitant textual emergence of the sodomite with the male prostitute. The Introduction establishes the theoretical framework through which male prostitution from the medieval period until the mid-twentieth century has been discussed in twentieth-century criticism. Chapter One assesses its textual appearance in early modern Italy, France and Spain, while it sets the parameters for its examination in seventeenth-century England. Chapter Two analyses the representation of the male prostitute in Donne’s, Marston’s and Middleton’s satires and Chapter Three examines the theatrical institution and the ways in which theatre historiography misdirects discussions on sodomy and prostitution. The penultimate chapter focuses on textual constructions of the male prostitute in educational contexts and the final chapter addresses possible interrelations between prostitution, servitude, favouritism and friendship as represented within lexicography, slanderous discourse and historical narratives on King James and Francis Bacon

    Time resolved scattering relaxation mechanisms of microcavity polaritons

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    We study the polariton relaxation dynamics for different scattering mechanisms as: Phonon and electron scattering procesess. The relaxation polariton is obtained at very short times by solving the Boltzman equation. Instead of the well-known relaxation process by phonons, we show that the bottleneck effect relaxes to the ground state more efficiently at low pump power intensity when the electron relaxation process is included. In this way, we clearly demonstrate that different relaxation times exist, for which any of these two mechanism is more efficient to relax the polariton population to the ground state.Comment: 10 eps figure

    Low energy recoil detection with a spherical proportional counter

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    We present low energy recoil detection results in the keV energy region, from measurements performed with the Spherical Proportional Counter (SPC). An 241Am9Be{}^{241}Am-{}^{9}{Be} fast neutron source is used in order to obtain neutron-nucleus elastic scattering events inside the gaseous volume of the detector. The detector performance in the keVkeV energy region was resolved by observing the 5.9 keV5.9\ keV line of a 55Fe{}^{55}Fe X-ray source, with energy resolution of 9%9\% (σ\sigma). The toolkit GEANT4 was used to simulate the irradiation of the detector by an 241Am9Be{}^{241}Am-{}^{9}{Be} source, while SRIM was used to calculate the Ionization Quenching Factor (IQF). The GEANT4 simulated energy deposition spectrum in addition with the SRIM calculated quenching factor provide valuable insight to the experimental results. The performance of the SPC in low energy recoil detection makes the detector a good candidate for a wide range of applications, including Supernova or reactor neutrino detection and Dark Matter (WIMP) searches (via coherent elastic scattering).Comment: 16 pages, 16 figures, preprin

    Impact of Driving Cycles on Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions, Global Warming Potential (GWP) and Fuel Economy for SI Car Real World Driving

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    The transport sector is one of the major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. This study investigated three greenhouse gases emitted from road transport: CO2, N2O and CH4 emissions as a function of engine warm up and driving cycles. Five different urban driving cycles were developed and used including free flow driving and congested driving. An in-vehicle FTIR (Fourier Transform Inferred) emission measurement system was installed on a EURO2 emission compliant SI (Spark Ignition) car for emissions measurement at a rate of 0.5 HZ under real world urban driving conditions. This emission measurement system was calibrated on a standard CVS (Constant Volume Sampling) measurement system and showed excellent agreement on CO2 measurement with CVS results. The N2O and CH4 measurement was calibrated using calibration gas in lab. A MAX710 real time in-vehicle fuel consumption measurement system was installed in the test vehicle and real time fuel consumption was then obtained. The temperatures across the TWC (Three Way Catalyst) and engine out exhaust gas lambda were measured. The GHG (greenhouse gas) mass emissions and consequent GWP (Global Warming Potential) for different urban diving conditions were analyzed and presented. The results provided a better understanding of traffic related greenhouse gas emission profile in urban area and will contribute to the control of climate change
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