The Rite of Initiation in Pinter\u27s The Birthday Party

The paper is an attempt to give full treatment to elements in Harold Pinter\u27s The Birthday Party which suggest the rite of initiation practiced in primitive societies. A few critics have touched upon the subject of initiation in the play, but they fail to discuss it in detail. Extensive comparisons are made between Charles Eckert\u27s summary of initiation rituals and the actions and characters in the play. The initiate is isolated from society as a preliminary to the rite of initiation; Stanley is isolated in a seaside boarding house. The initiate is secluded in a dark and threatening place; Stanley sits alone during the party until forced into a game of blindman\u27s buff. The initiate must endure ordeals or perform feats; Stanley endures the ordeal of blindman\u27s buff. The initiate endures hazing (physical or mental harassment); Stanley endures an Inquisition at the hands of Goldberg and McCann. The initiate goes through a phase of instruction during the initiation rite; Stanley is instructed with a litany of the sacred cliches of his society. The initiate is marked as an adult by some sort of bodily mutilation; Stanley is clean-shaven for the first time in the play just before Goldberg and McCann take him away. The initiate undergoes the rite of investiture, in which he is dressed in adult clothing; Stanley appears in a suit, carrying a bowler hat, just before being taken away. Anthropological material is used to support these parallels between the rite of initiation and the events in the play. The second part of the paper details the organic connections between the initiatory imagery and other levels of meaning in the play. Images of birth and death are related symbolically to the rite of initiation. Details concerning family relationships (e.g. Stan and Meg\u27s pseudo-incest) pertain to initiation. The theme of individual vs. society is related to initiation, complicated by the fact that Pinter portrays Goldberg and McCann as representatives of a corrupt, decadent society. The theme of man\u27s place in the universe relates to initiation, which instructs man about his place in the universe. In Pinter\u27s universe, man is blind and faces uncertainty and hostility. The conclusion focuses on the contributions made by the initiatory imagery in the creation of an organically whole play. The initiatory elements support, or otherwise relate to, several thematic levels of the play, thus making an effective contribution to the whole

Search for Lena E. Mendelsohn

During much of the Twentieth Century, public accounting was considered to be a man\u27s profession. Few women had the fortitude or opportunity to challenge the system which generally discriminated against their practice of public accounting. Several papers have identified women pioneers in accountancy and others have documented the difficulties women faced in becoming Certified Public Accountants (CPA) and practicing professionally. Most of these papers have said a little or nothing of Lena E. Mendelsohn, although she is referred to by Meyers and Koval (1994) as ...a woman pioneer in the professional accounting field,...a well-known CPA in Boston. (p. 29) Other than a few references to her in the literature, little is known about Mendelsohn

New Simulation and Fusion Techniques for Assessing and Enhancing UAS Topographic and Bathymetric Point cloud Accuracy

Imagery acquired from unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and processed with structure from motion (SfM) – multi-view stereo (MVS) algorithms provides transformative new capabilities for surveying and mapping. Together, these new tools are leading to a democratization of airborne surveying and mapping by enabling similar capabilities (including similar or better accuracies, albeit from substantially lower altitudes) at a fraction of the cost and size of conventional aircraft. While SfM-MVS processing is becoming widely used for mapping topography, and more recently bathymetry, empirical accuracy assessments—especially, those aimed at investigating the sensitivity of point cloud accuracy to varying acquisition and processing parameters—can be difficult, expensive, and logistically complicated. Additional challenges in bathymetric mapping from UAS imagery using SfM-MVS software relate to refraction-induced errors and lack of coverage in areas of homogeneous sandy substrate. This dissertation aims to address these challenges through development and testing of new algorithms for SfM-MVS accuracy assessment and bathymetry retrieval. A new tool for simulating UAS imagery, simUAS, is presented and used to assess SfM-MVS accuracy for topographic mapping (Chapter 2) and bathymetric mapping (Chapter 3). The importance of simUAS is that it can be used to precisely vary one parameter at a time, while perfectly fixing all others, which is possible, because the UAS data are synthetically generated. Hence, the issues of uncontrolled variables, such as changing illumination levels and moving objects in the scene, which occur in empirical experiments using real UAS, are eliminated. Furthermore, simulated experiments using this approach can be performed without the need for costly and time-intensive fieldwork. The results of these studies demonstrate how processing settings and initial camera position accuracy relate to the accuracy of the resultant point cloud. For bathymetric processing, it was found that camera position accuracy is particularly important for generating accurate results. Even when accurate camera positions are acquired for bathymetric data, SfM-MVS processing is still unable to resolve depths in regions which lack seafloor texture, such as sandy, homogeneous substrate. A new methodology is introduced and tested which uses the results from the SfM-MVS processing to train a radiometric model, which estimates water depth based on the wavelength-dependent attenuation of light in the water column (Chapter 4). The methodology is shown to increase the spatial coverage and improve the accuracy of the bathymetric data at a field site on Buck Island off of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Collectively, this work is anticipated to facilitate greater use of UAS for nearshore bathymetric mapping

Techno-economic optimization of a scaled-up solar concentrator combined with CSPonD thermal energy storage

A molten salt direct absorption receiver, CSPonD, used to simultaneously collect and store thermal energy is being tested by Masdar Institute and MIT in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Whilst a research-scale prototype has been combined with a beam-down tower in Abu Dhabi, the original design coupled the receiver with a hillside heliostat field. With respect to a conventional power-tower setup, a hillside solar field presents the advantages of eliminating tower costs, heat tracing equipment, and high-pressure pumps. This analysis considers the industrial viability of the CSPonD concept by modeling a 10 MWe up-scaled version of a molten salt direct absorption receiver combined with a hillside heliostat field. Five different slope angles are initially simulated to determine the optimum choice using a combination of lowest LCOE and highest IRR, and sensitivity analyses are carried out based on thermal energy storage duration, power output, and feed-in tariff price. Finally, multi-objective optimization is undertaken to determine a Pareto front representing optimum cases. The study indicates that a 40° slope and a combination of 14 h thermal energy storage with a 40-50 MW[subscript e] power output provide the best techno-economic results. By selecting one simulated result and using a feed-in tariff of 0.25 $/kWh, a competitive IRR of 15.01 % can be achieved

Innovation in the classroom : A transportation geotechnics application of desktop learning modules to promote inductive learning

In many undergraduate engineering programs, students do not synthesize content learned from multiple courses until a capstone senior design course. As an example, in undergraduate civil engineering programs, transportation engineering concepts (e.g., geometric alignment, asphalt design procedures) and geotechnical engineering concepts (e.g., shear strength of soils, soil compaction) are not often synthesized until senior design, if then. As a result, concepts learned in multiple upper-division engineering courses, as well as other required courses, often seem disparate to students. In reality, engineers are required to synthesize concepts learned in a broad number of their courses to develop creative solutions to unique problems. This will particularly be true for the engineer of the future, who will need to develop unique solutions to problems caused by climate change and increasing global population, among others

Functional status predicts acute care readmissions from inpatient rehabilitation in the stroke population

Objective: Acute care readmission risk is an increasingly recognized problem that has garnered significant attention, yet the reasons for acute care readmission in the inpatient rehabilitation population are complex and likely multifactorial. Information on both medical comorbidities and functional status is routinely collected for stroke patients participating in inpatient rehabilitation. We sought to determine whether functional status is a more robust predictor of acute care readmissions in the inpatient rehabilitation stroke population compared with medical comorbidities using a large, administrative data set. Methods: A retrospective analysis of data from the Uniform Data System for Medical Rehabilitation from the years 2002 to 2011 was performed examining stroke patients admitted to inpatient rehabilitation facilities. A Basic Model for predicting acute care readmission risk based on age and functional status was compared with models incorporating functional status and medical comorbidities (Basic-Plus) or models including age and medical comorbidities alone (Age-Comorbidity). C-statistics were compared to evaluate model performance. Findings: There were a total of 803,124 patients: 88,187 (11%) patients were transferred back to an acute hospital: 22,247 (2.8%) within 3 days, 43,481 (5.4%) within 7 days, and 85,431 (10.6%) within 30 days. The C-statistics for the Basic Model were 0.701, 0.672, and 0.682 at days 3, 7, and 30 respectively. As compared to the Basic Model, the best-performing Basic-Plus model was the Basic+Elixhauser model with C-statistics differences of +0.011, +0.011, and + 0.012, and the best-performing Age-Comorbidity model was the Age+Elixhauser model with C-statistic differences of -0.124, -0.098, and -0.098 at days 3, 7, and 30 respectively. Conclusions: Readmission models for the inpatient rehabilitation stroke population based on functional status and age showed better predictive ability than models based on medical comorbidities