W/rites of Passion: Thea Astley's Sunshine Coast Transition from Poetry to Fiction

During 1947 and 1948, Thea Astley's life changed in ways that permanently affected her writing. In August 1947, she obtained a transfer to Imbil State School, west of Noosa. In November she re-sat failed University of Queensland exams in economics and history, and graduated with a BA in the following April. In January 1948, Astley took up a secondary teaching post at Pomona Rural High. On 27 August, she married Jack Gregson at the Gympie Registry Office. She transferred to Brisbane for the remainder of 1948, and early in the New Year moved with her husband to Sydney. This article contrasts poetry about love and place that Astley wrote during these transition years with the themes and tone of her novel, A Descant for Gossips, published in 1960 and set in Pomona (‘Gungee’) and its environs. Dedicated ‘To John’, Astley's love poems display a passionate lyricism and a commitment that, though usually nervous and conditional, encompasses moments of settled happiness and clarity. In Descant, by contrast, moments of fulfilment in the love affair of teachers Helen Striebel and Robert Moller are suffused with guilt. Similarly, Astley's youthful response in her poetry to the beauty of the ranges and the coast collapses a decade later in Descant into a dystopic rendition of Gungee as a town that punishes defiance and crucifies difference. The article concludes by speculating about causes for the transformation

Author, Scribe, and Book in Late Medieval English Literature by Rory G. Critten (review)

[Extract] The writers whose works are the subject of this book, Thomas Hoccleve, Margery Kempe, John Audelay, and Charles d'Orléans, were diverse in achievement, class, occupation, location, genre, subject matter, and gender. What they shared was an era—the first half of the fifteenth century—and the English language, in which each composed one or more of their works. Author, Scribe and Book brings these authors together on the basis of one further attribute that they shared—self-publication. Each participated in the physical making of their books, either by transcription—Hoccleve—, by dictation—Margery—, by compilation—Audelay—, or by supervision—Charles

Rolle, Hilton and the author of The Cloud of Unknowing: the divine as freedom in middle English contemplative writings

The thesis argues that the leading male-authored contemplative writings composed in England in the fourteenth century mediated many aspects of contemporary ideology, including the most conservative, but that their mediation of new social paradigms renders them liminal texts. The key contention is that the writings' social and historical creativity stems from their centring on the divine. The thesis rejects Marxist and post-structuralist constructions of the divine as the peak and ultimate determinant of an unjust social system. It does, however, adopt both Irigaray's concept of the divine as a feminist strategy, and the Shaivite conception of the divine as the ultimate source of freedom and creativity. Other theories and models applied to the texts in the course of discussion include post-structuralist and Shaivite conceptions of language and of the "reality" produced by discourse, insights into the binary foundations of language and experience developed by Cixous and Kristeva, theories of logos in relation to "feminine" poetic excess, Bynum's views on mediaeval constructions of gender, Volosinov's stylistic theory, theories of utopia and play, and Gnosticism as a model of marginality. The thesis adopts the minute reading practices proposed by David Aers, as a strategy for uncovering the writings' synchronic engagement with contemporary -historical circumstances, which are outlined in preliminary chapters. A purpose of the thesis is to counter the current critical trend to merge the writings diachronically with preceding literary and ecclesiastical traditions, by emphasising their production by the ideology of their period. The basis of discussion is a detailed examination and analysis of all the known works by each of the chosen authors. Rolle's writings and The Cloud of Unknowing and its companion texts are dealt with in the order required by the argument, but Section Two considers Hilton's whole canon in chronological order of composition

An Analysis of Cabin Ozone Regulations

Exposure to elevated levels of ozone have been reported to be associated with complaints of discomfort such as dry mouth, eye irritation and dryness, nasal irritation coughing, and headaches. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) established regulatory requirements in 1980 to limit cabin ozone levels to no more than 0.25 parts per million (ppm) at any time or 0.1 ppm averaged over a 3-hour interval for any flight over four hours in length. The FAA also published an Advisory Circular (AC), AC 120-38, to provide guidance to air carriers on how to comply with these then new ozone regulations. Methods of compliance include the use of catalytic converters, or ozone filters, designed to remove ozone, utilizing statistical methods to prove that ozone concentrations will not exceed limits for the carrier’s route structure and flight planning to avoid areas of reported high concentrations of ozone. The calculations used to determine cabin ozone concentration from manufacturer’s filter efficiency data and ozone levels are to be based on published ozonesonde data found in the AC 120-38 or an equivalent data set. Unfortunately, the published ozonesonde data in the AC 120-38 are outdated and the AC does not point to any other data source that is acceptable to the FAA to conduct the required statistical analysis. In addition, once compliance is shown, no followup measurements are required to ensure that ozone levels remain below these required levels. Actual ozone concentrations have been measured in the aircraft by several researchers that exceed these regulatory levels. Finally, FAA ozone regulations and AC 120-38 do not address cumulative effects of ozone exposure to crewmembers over multiple flights and do not offer any protection against ozone exposure for crewmembers on non-passenger carrying flights. A revision of federal regulations to afford protection to all crewmembers, account for cumulative effects, and updated compliance methods that rely on current ozonesonde data and periodic ozone monitoring should be accomplished to ensure crewmembers are not subjected to ozone levels that could potentially result in serious health concerns

MODELING INTERNATIONAL TRADE IMPACTS OF GENETICALLY MODIFIED WHEAT INTRODUCTIONS

Planned introductions of genetically modified crop varieties can be troublesome to model. Estimation of demand and supply equations is not feasible due to lack of data. Further, specifying demand and supply equations requires calibration to a presumed equilibrium. Depending on the point chosen, highly questionable results may be obtained. We propose a model that uses existing supply, demand, and elasticity estimates. The approach relies on composite supply and demand functions. These composite functions are linear combinations of GM and non-GM varieties. We then employ this approach in a model of world wheat trade to analyze the impact of several plausible GM wheat adoption and consumer acceptability scenarios.international trade, genetically modified organisms, producer surplus, consumer surplus, welfare, transportation cost, International Relations/Trade, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Sylvia Martin, Ink in Her Veins: The Troubled Life of Aileen Palmer

This is a review (1461 words). It doesn't require an abstract

Randolph the Reckless: Explorations in Australian Masculine Identity, 1889-1941

The article surveys the writing of Randolph Bedford and reveals the multiplicity and contradictions in the masculine model for Australians that Bedford proclaimed. It references his articles for the Bulletin and his novels, True Eyes and the Whirlwind , The Snare of Strength and Billy Pagan, Mining Engineer