Stephen and the ‘Uncreated Conscience’ of His Race: Exploring the Native Concerns in James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man explores what it means to be an artist in late nineteenth century Ireland, fraught with religious and political strife. The novel is an account of the formative days of Stephen Dedalus, the protagonist, who comes to realize that before he can become a true artist, he must rid himself of the stultifying effects of the religion, politics and essential bigotry of his background in late nineteenth century Ireland. During the course of the narrative he breathes in something of every wind that blows in Ireland. He believes that beyond the coasts of erstwhile Ireland, poor and culturally deprived, is the culture of the world. His eclectic perception makes him determined to use his art to reclaim emancipation for the soul of his native land. The homeless Irishman in Ireland, the homeless genius in the world, Stephen resolves to fly off like Icarus, onward and upward, and ‘forge’ in the smithy of his soul the ‘uncreated conscience’ of his race. The present paper intends to study A Portrait in light of its historical, social and cultural context as well as to discuss Stephen’s encounters with and reactions to the notions of nation and nationalism, society and culture, religion and liberty

Effect of combination of light and drought stress on physiology and oxidative metabolism of rice plants

The realized productivity of crop plants is generally lower than the potential productivity due to the influence of one or more external stresses (biotic and abiotic). Simultaneous occurrence of combination of abiotic stresses, which is more common under field condition, results in compounded effect on functional processes. Main focus of the present work is the combined effect of drought and light (irradiance) on rice plants. Potted seedlings of four selected rice lines (viz., IR36, N22, CRD40 and Bhootmuri) were exposed to three different levels of drought stress (50%, 25%, 12.5% of water) along with control (100%) in combination with three different light intensities (high, medium and low) during experimental period. After 7 days of stress, plant height and relative water content (RWC) were relatively low while root length increased with increasing water stress level and light intensity. Protein content increased with increasing water stress and light intensity, while chlorophyll level was higher at higher light intensities. Malondialdehyde (MDA) content, indicative of lipid peroxidation, increased with water stress only at high light intensities. Superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POX) and ascorbate peroxidase (APX) activities increased with combined drought and light stress level, whereas catalase (CAT) activity was higher at higher light intensities. On the other hand, superoxide (O2.-) production, but not hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) production was higher with increasing water stress and light intensity. It appears that light-induced ROS (O2.-) production under drought condition provoked oxidative stress, though a potential mechanism of tolerance was apparent through antioxidant system

IN-VITRO STUDY ON THE HEMOLYTIC ACTIVITY OF DIFFERENT EXTRACTS OF INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANT CROTON BONPLANDIANUM WITH PHYTOCHEMICAL ESTIMATION: A NEW ERA IN DRUG DEVELOPMENT

In this study different extracts of the leaves of Croton bonplandianum were screened for the haemolytic activity towards human erythrocytes. The haemolytic activity was performed by modified spectroscopic method at four different concentrations (300, 150, 75, 25 μg/ml). The haemolytic activity of the different extracts of Croton bonplandianum was found in the following order Ethyl acetate extract > Chloroform extract > Benzene extract. However, all the extracts alone and in combination with each other exhibited very low haemolytic activity. E. ganitrus did not exhibit any haemolytic activity at any dilution. Hence, they can be considered as safe to human erythrocytes. Keywords: Hemolytic activity, Croton bonplandianum, Erythrocyte

Abnormality Detection in ECG Signal applying Poincare and Entropy-based Approaches

Detection of abnormality in heart is of major importance for early and appropriate clinical medication. In this work, we have proposed two models for detection of abnormality in ECG signals. The normal ECG signals are closely repetitive in nature to a large extent, whereas ECG signals with abnormalities tend to differ from cycle to cycle. Hence, repetitive plot like the Poincare is efficient to detect such non-repetitiveness of the signal; thereby, indicating abnormalities. Hence, we have used Poincare plot to develop the two proposed models. One of the models uses direct analysis of the binary image of the plot to detect the difference in retracing, between the healthy and unhealthy samples. The other model uses entropy of the Poincare plot to detect the difference in randomness of plots between the two classes. Most importantly, we have used only lead II ECG signal for analysis. This ensures ease of computation as it uses signal of only a single lead instead of the 12 leads of the complete ECG signal. We have validated the proposed models using ECG signals from the ‘ptb database’. We have observed that the entropy analysis of the Poincare plots gives the best results with 90% accuracy of abnormality detection. This high accuracy of classification, combined with less computational burden enables its practical implementation for the development of a real life abnormality detection schem

Optimasi Portofolio Resiko Menggunakan Model Markowitz MVO Dikaitkan dengan Keterbatasan Manusia dalam Memprediksi Masa Depan dalam Perspektif Al-Qur`an

Risk portfolio on modern finance has become increasingly technical, requiring the use of sophisticated mathematical tools in both research and practice. Since companies cannot insure themselves completely against risk, as human incompetence in predicting the future precisely that written in Al-Quran surah Luqman verse 34, they have to manage it to yield an optimal portfolio. The objective here is to minimize the variance among all portfolios, or alternatively, to maximize expected return among all portfolios that has at least a certain expected return. Furthermore, this study focuses on optimizing risk portfolio so called Markowitz MVO (Mean-Variance Optimization). Some theoretical frameworks for analysis are arithmetic mean, geometric mean, variance, covariance, linear programming, and quadratic programming. Moreover, finding a minimum variance portfolio produces a convex quadratic programming, that is minimizing the objective function ðð¥with constraintsð ð 𥠥 ðandð´ð¥ = ð. The outcome of this research is the solution of optimal risk portofolio in some investments that could be finished smoothly using MATLAB R2007b software together with its graphic analysis

Search for heavy resonances decaying to two Higgs bosons in final states containing four b quarks

A search is presented for narrow heavy resonances X decaying into pairs of Higgs bosons (H) in proton-proton collisions collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC at root s = 8 TeV. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 fb(-1). The search considers HH resonances with masses between 1 and 3 TeV, having final states of two b quark pairs. Each Higgs boson is produced with large momentum, and the hadronization products of the pair of b quarks can usually be reconstructed as single large jets. The background from multijet and t (t) over bar events is significantly reduced by applying requirements related to the flavor of the jet, its mass, and its substructure. The signal would be identified as a peak on top of the dijet invariant mass spectrum of the remaining background events. No evidence is observed for such a signal. Upper limits obtained at 95 confidence level for the product of the production cross section and branching fraction sigma(gg -> X) B(X -> HH -> b (b) over barb (b) over bar) range from 10 to 1.5 fb for the mass of X from 1.15 to 2.0 TeV, significantly extending previous searches. For a warped extra dimension theory with amass scale Lambda(R) = 1 TeV, the data exclude radion scalar masses between 1.15 and 1.55 TeV

Measurement of t(t)over-bar normalised multi-differential cross sections in pp collisions at root s=13 TeV, and simultaneous determination of the strong coupling strength, top quark pole mass, and parton distribution functions

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An embedding technique to determine ττ backgrounds in proton-proton collision data

An embedding technique is presented to estimate standard model tau tau backgrounds from data with minimal simulation input. In the data, the muons are removed from reconstructed mu mu events and replaced with simulated tau leptons with the same kinematic properties. In this way, a set of hybrid events is obtained that does not rely on simulation except for the decay of the tau leptons. The challenges in describing the underlying event or the production of associated jets in the simulation are avoided. The technique described in this paper was developed for CMS. Its validation and the inherent uncertainties are also discussed. The demonstration of the performance of the technique is based on a sample of proton-proton collisions collected by CMS in 2017 at root s = 13 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 41.5 fb(-1).Peer reviewe