The Hidden Depths of Popular Fiction. A Study of Two Female Writers of Wilhelmine Germany, 1890-1914

The Hidden Depths of Popular Fiction. A Study of two Female Authors of Wilhelmine Germany, 1890-1914 This investigation presents two literary case studies that demonstrate the heterogeneity of Wilhelmine popular fiction, both in terms of thematic orientation and aesthetic quality. The chosen authors are women from bourgeois backgrounds who were prolific and well-known during their life-time, but who have since been relegated. They target the ‘new middle class’ of that era as their readership and, respectively, represent two important but contested genres of late nineteenth-century popular fiction: Heimatkunst and the Sozialroman. Heimatkunst has been dismissed as a homogeneous propagator of right-wing ideology. Yet the texts of Charlotte Niese evidence ‘resistant practice’ within and against prevailing discourse parameters. Her autobiographical writing demonstrates a type of nationalism orientated in dignity and independence, rather than competition and militarism, while also showing how political indoctrination and imposition poisoned the vernacular social status quo which otherwise managed to integrate antagonistic values and attitudes. Her fictional narratives highlight how writing dubbed Heimatkunst was subject to hybridisation, at times to amount to an approximation of a modernist aesthetic. The Sozialroman has been dismissed as a trivial ‘variety of social recipes’. Luise Westkirch’s narratives, however, incorporate thorough-going social reform. Her shorter narratives include astute, psychologically-based social critique which facilitates insights into contemporaneous preoccupations and slow perceptual changes. Incorporating tenets derived from the German romantic legacy, her narratives challenge dominant discourse parameters directly. In the process, the internationally ubiquitous interpretation of competition and power as basic instinctual drives is deconstructed as an erroneous and self-destructive assumption. Westkirch’s complex narratives establish sub-textual agendas through ‘thematic compounding’ that directs the reader’s attention overtly at one set of issues while covertly commenting on another. In this way, she constructs gender inequality as an indictment of normative socio-political systems. This study therefore argues that popular fiction located in a time of cultural crisis has the potential to make explicit the parameters of the prevailing dominant discourse, against which specific values are articulated. Since a conscious formulation of these parameters is essential to the loosening of any conceptual hegemony, which depends on implicitness, fiction thus situated can yield new perspectives, not only in terms of historical insight, but in terms of conceptual alternatives that also have contemporary relevance.The Leverhulme Trus

Estimation of the parameters of a delayed process using open loop time domain techniques

In this paper, we present three different approaches to fit the experimental data of a process with time delay in the time domain. Two of the proposed methods are based on the step response, and the third is based on the pulse response. The effectiveness of these techniques is verified by simulation results and by real-time experimental data. Only first order lag plus time delay models are considered in this paper

La legge sul “caporalato” (l. n. 199/2016): una svolta “etica” nel diritto del lavoro italiano? Una prima lettura

Il saggio esamina la recente legge 199 del 2016 che modifica l’art. 603 bis del codice penale introducendo la nuova fattispecie di reato dello “sfruttamento del lavoratore approfittando del suo stato di bisogno” ed interviene in un’area del lavoro irregolare rispetto alla quale, per la gravità dei comportamenti lesivi, apparivano inadeguate le sanzioni contravvenzionali o amministrative. L’A. parla di svolta “etica” nel diritto penale del lavoro ma anche nel diritto della sicurezza nel lavoro ed evidenzia che la riforma, inserendo il nuovo reato fra quelli che devono essere prevenuti con i modelli organizzativi previsti dal d.lgs. n. 231/2001, chiama le aziende a partecipare alla prevenzione di ogni forma di illegalità nei rapporti di lavoro anche e soprattutto nella gestione delle varie forme di intermediazione e di decentramento produttivo. The essay examines the recent law 199 of 2016 amending art. 603 bis of the Criminal Code, which introduces the new offense of "exploiting the worker by taking advantage of his need state" and intervenes in an area of irregular labor where, due to the severity of the injured behavior, the contraventional or administrative penalties seemed inadequate. The author speaks of "ethical" change in labor law but also in the law of labor safety and highlights that reform, including the new offense among those that must be prevented with the organizational models provided by d. lgs. 231/2001, calls on companies to participate in the prevention of any form of illegality in employment relationships, especially in the management of various forms of intermediation and productive decentralization

La cultura della sicurezza fra organizzazione e formazione - Presentazione

Presentazione del Convegno, organizzato dal Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza dell’Università di Bari “A. Moro” – Master in Gestione del lavoro e delle relazioni sindacali, si è tenuto a Bari, il 20 novembre 201

UAMS, A Study in System Administration Automation

Historically, the Computing and Information Services group on campus had not issued personalized user id's (or PUDs) to students. However, in 1992, CIS reversed themselves on this topic. In the ensuing three years, the number of PUDs handed out by CIS has exploded. In 1995, a new fe , the Student Technology Fee, was established as a tax on the students to supply services for the students as directed by the students. One of the side effects of this is that the students wanted to have email accounts for all students starting in the fall of 1995. The CIS department now provides PUDs to all incoming freshmen, in part to meet their obligation to the Student Technology Fee Committee. In order to do this, CIS intends to support a Centralized Flat Name Space (CFNS) system for the entire campus. Using this system, all users would have exactly one user login name across all platforms on campus. However, UAMS has UCls for virtually all OSU users (approximately 15000 at this time). In addition, the UAMS system has many of the features that CIS finds desirable for their support of computing on campus. As a result, CIS has offered to merge their PUD database with the UCI database maintained by UAMS in the Computer Science (COMSC) department if COMSC develops the code to support t his merger on the UAMS side and if COMSC will advise CIS in the development of their part of the code to support t his merger. The resulting CFNS will be accesible by all of the current UAMS supported departments, and will allow CIS to expand the CFNS concept to the entire university. The problem, and the focus of this thesis, is the result of the joint effort between the COMSC Department and CIS here at Oklahoma State University to implement a centralized fiat name space system for the entire campus, based on UDB and UAMS, and further to deal with the merging of the two databases of information (PUDs -vs- UCIs). One of this thesis' goals is to describe how such a modified UAMS system would work, whom it would benefit, and how much work it would require to achieve the goal of a centralized flat name space system

La cultura della sicurezza fra organizzazione e formazione - Presentazione

Presentazione di un percorso di riflessioni scientifiche sulla cultura della sicurezza sul lavoro, fra organizzazione e formazion

The Correlation between the Characteristics of Conflicts in Partner Relationships, the Experience of Emotional Burnout and Assessment of the Future of the Partner Relationship

U radu su prikazani rezultati istraživanja čiji je cilj utvrditi postoji li povezanost između obilježja partnerskih sukoba s doživljajem emocionalnog sagorijevanja i procjenom budućnosti partnerske veze. Podaci su prikupljeni anketnim upitnikom na uzorku od 149 osoba koje su radi teškoća u partnerskom odnosu uključene u psihosocijalno savjetovanje. U analizi podataka korištena je deskriptivna statistika, hi-kvadrat test, t-test te Pearsonov koeficijent korelacije. Rezultati su pokazali da veći stupanj izraženosti neslaganja u partnerskom odnosu korelira s manjom spremnošću na aktivno ulaganje u odnos, s češćim emocionalnim sagorijevanjem i odustajanjem od odnosa. Utvrđeno je da učestalije efikasno rješavanje sukoba i sposobnost razrješavanja sukoba korelira s većom spremnošću na aktivno ulaganje u odnos te s manjim emocionalnim sagorijevanjem i odustajanjem od odnosa. Češća iskustva s negativnim ishodima sukobljavanja u obliku produbljivanja sukoba povezana su s češćim doživljajem emocionalnog sagorijevanja i odustajanjem od partnerskog odnosa. Zaključno se ističe važnost dostupnosti različitih usluga profesionalne podrške usmjerene na pravovremeno, konstruktivno razrješavanje partnerskih sukoba, prevenciju emocionalnog sagorijevanja i nestabilnost partnerskog odnosa.The paper presents the results of research aimed at determining whether there is a correlation between the characteristics of conflicts in partner relationships and experience of emotional burnout and assessment of the future of the partner relationship. Data was collected by means of a survey questionnaire administered to the sample of 149 persons who were involved in psychosocial counselling due to difficulties in their partner relationships. The survey questionnaire consisted of the following measurement instruments: The Questionnaire on the Socio-Demographic Characteristics of Research Participants, the Questionnaire on Marital Burnout, the Questionnaire on the Future of the Partner Relationship and the Conflicts and Problem-solving Scales. Descriptive statistics, chi-square test, t-test and Pearson’s correlation coefficient were used in data analysis. The research results showed that persons involved in counselling due to difficulties in their partner relationship often experience emotional burnout in the partner relationship, namely on a weekly basis, and that they express an ambivalent attitude towards the future of the relationship. In doing so, they are equally ready for further active investment in the relationship, as well as for withdrawing from the relationship. There are not significant differences between men and women in assessment of emotional burnout and the future of the partner relationship, nor in assessment of the frequency of minor and major conflicts in the partner relationship. The largest percentage of research participants, namely 29.73%, experience minor conflicts in their partner relationship almost every day, while 26.35% experience them on a weekly basis and 27.03% on a monthly basis. Regarding major conflicts in the partner relationship, 6.80% of participants experience them almost every day, while 21.77% of participants experience them on a weekly basis and 20.41% on a monthly basis. A quarter of participants (23.13%) report experiencing major conflicts once per year or even less frequently. Participants in this research assess that their conflicts more often result in the conflicts becoming more profound than in conflict resolution. The results of the correlation analysis showed that a higher degree of disagreement in a partner relationship correlates with a lower willingness to actively invest in the relationship, with more frequent emotional burnout and withdrawal from the relationship. Furthermore, it has been found that more frequent efficient conflict resolution and conflict resolution capability correlates with a greater willingness to actively invest in a relationship and with a lesser degree of emotional burnout and withdrawal from the relationship. More frequent experiences with negative conflict outcomes in the form of the conflict becoming more profound are associated with a more frequent experience of emotional burnout and more frequent withdrawal from the partner relationship. In conclusion, the paper emphasises the importance of further development and greater availability of professional services aimed at providing support to partners in terms of constructive resolution of their conflicts in order to prevent the occurrence of emotional burnout and instability of partner relationships in a timely manner

Use of irrigation device for duct dilatation during sialendoscopy

Background: Continuous irrigation of the duct with isotonic saline is one of the fundamental stages of a successful sialendoscopic procedure. It allows for an adequate luminal distension for the removal of debris and mucous plugs and for the conservative treatment of strictures. This procedure, which commonly involves the use of a medical syringe, can be laborious, and it is often necessary to interrupt irrigation during surgery due to the high resistance to saline. Setting: Academic university hospital. Method: We propose the use of an irrigation device which consists of a high-pressure syringe barrel, an ergonomic piston handle, and a gauge used to monitor the inflation and deflation of balloon catheters. The system allows for a simple and safe dilation, ensuring good visualization of the salivary duct lumen during sialendoscopy. Conclusions: The irrigation system described can be widely used to perform a diagnostic or interventional sialendoscopy more effectively than with a typical manual irrigation procedure