A Map of the World The 4-Way Street of British Political Theatre 1968-1985

Abstract This thesis will focus on four case studies in the landscape of British political theatre between 1968 and 1985. These two years are milestones in more than one way: 1968 marks the peak of the students\u2019 protest all around Europe, and the end of the Lord Chamberlain\u2019s censorship of the theatre in Great Britain; 1985 records the defeat of the miners\u2019 strike and the definitive triumph of Thatcherism. This study considers the work of one company, CAST, and three authors, David Edgar, Caryl Churchill and Howard Barker. In Chapter One, CAST\u2019s history is reconstructed from original documents from the East London Theatre Archive and the Arts Council of Great Britain Archive. The company\u2019s history has been divided into two periods: the first one from 1965 to 1975, in which the company remained non-professional and the artistic bases of the company were laid, and a second one, from 1976 to 1985, during which the company was the recipient of an ACGB subsidy and was therefore allowed to become full time. In Chapter Two the first paragraphs have been devoted to a general assessment of the playwrights of the post-1968 generation. I have then focused on Edgar and examined three of his plays: Dick Deterred as an example of Shakespearean parody applied to contemporary politics; Destiny for its long-lasting relevance as an analysis of the growing influence of a fascist ideology on the working class; Our Own People for having been written for a small company, Pirate Jenny, and for its derivative relationship with Destiny. Chapter Three opens with an overview of women\u2019s presence in theatre in general and in playwriting in particular during the period in question. I have then focused on three of Churchill\u2019s early plays. Not Not Not Not Not Enough Oxygen has been particularly examined as an early example of Churchill\u2019s use of dystopia in order to make powerful political statements; Vinegar Tom has been singled out for dealing with witchcraft \u2013 a central theme in feminist re-thinking of social history \u2013 and for being the result of a close collaboration with the Monstrous Regiment company; The After-Dinner Joke has been the subject of a close scrutiny as regards the strategies of humour employed: a certain kinship with Brecht\u2019s Saint Joan of the Stockyards is also touched upon. In Chapter Four I have dealt with three of Barker\u2019s early plays. One Afternoon on the 63rd Level of the North Face of the Pyramid of Cheops the Great is an effective depiction of life in a factory, chronologically dislocated in ancient Egypt; its relationship with two of Brecht\u2019s poems is discussed. According to Barker, Cheek was written in reaction to Bond\u2019s portrayal of working-class life in Saved: this relationship is therefore discussed. A Passion in Six Days is the last of Barker\u2019s plays with a direct connection with British contemporary political reality: in staging a Labour Party annual conference, it stresses Barker\u2019s view on the crisis of socialism in the UK. The latter play is also examined as a prelude to Barker\u2019s Theatre of Catastrophe. In the Conclusion I have briefly assessed the creative production of the four subjects in connection to Britain\u2019s muted political situation from the second half of the 1980s onwards. Barker has completely severed any link with political theatre. Ronald Muldoon and Claire Burnley have for twenty years run the Hackney Empire, a theatre in the East End of London, proving that socialist ideas and enterprising spirit are not incompatible. Caryl Churchill has established herself as the most important British living playwright, showing an increasing experimental attitude. David Edgar has remained faithful to his political commitment; his latest play, Trying It On, is briefly reviewed

Blockwise SVD with error in the operator and application to blind deconvolution

We consider linear inverse problems in a nonparametric statistical framework. Both the signal and the operator are unknown and subject to error measurements. We establish minimax rates of convergence under squared error loss when the operator admits a blockwise singular value decomposition (blockwise SVD) and the smoothness of the signal is measured in a Sobolev sense. We construct a nonlinear procedure adapting simultaneously to the unknown smoothness of both the signal and the operator and achieving the optimal rate of convergence to within logarithmic terms. When the noise level in the operator is dominant, by taking full advantage of the blockwise SVD property, we demonstrate that the block SVD procedure overperforms classical methods based on Galerkin projection or nonlinear wavelet thresholding. We subsequently apply our abstract framework to the specific case of blind deconvolution on the torus and on the sphere

Cloud computing adoption during SARS-COV-2 pamdemic

Mestrado em Gestão de Sistemas de InformaçãoDue to the rapid global spread of the pandemic caused by the new coronavirus, companies and institutions were forced to take precautionary measures to reduce the risk of contagion, such as asking employees to work remotely from their homes. In this scenario, cloud computing technology has proven to be a great ally of companies to overcome the crisis caused by the pandemic.The adoption of Cloud Computing technology has accelerated in recent years and, according to a forecast made by the International Data Corporation (IDC), investment in cloud services will exceed US $1.0 trillion in 2024, which represents a rate of annual growth of 15.7$ 1,0 milhão de bilhões em 2024, o que representa uma taxa de crescimento anual de 15,7% (Villars et al., 2020).Na tentativa de auxiliar as organizações no planeamento das suas estratégias de adoção da computação em nuvem, o presente estudo pretende contribuir com a literatura existente sobre o assunto, e tem como objetivo de identificar os principais fatores que influenciam a adoção dessa tecnologia durante a crise pandêmicas de Covid-19.Nesse sentido, 18 fatores identificados durante a revisão da literatura foram apresentados a 11 especialistas na área de tecnologia de computação em nuvem, a fim de encontrar um consenso quanto à ordem de importância desses fatores.Através do método Delphi, dividido em duas fases e com duas rondas, foi obtida uma lista ordenada de acordo com o grau de importância dos principais fatores que influenciam a adoção da computação em nuvem. Após a análise dos dados, os resultados obtidos mostram que os seis fatores mais importantes são: (1) Custo de Adoção, Migração e Aquisição; (2) Disponibilidade e acessibilidade; (3) Escalabilidade; (4) Custo de perda de confidencialidade e disponibilidade de dados; (5) Segurança e (6) Personalização.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Archives, Numbers, Meaning: The Eighteenth-Century Playbill at Scale

In response to the growing prominence of quantification in the humanities, scholars of media and digital culture have highlighted the friction between the cultural and disciplinary roles of data and the epistemologies of humanistic inquiry. Johanna Drucker aptly characterizes the humanities as fields that emphasize “the situated, partial, and constitutive character of knowledge production,” while data are often taken to be representations of “observer-independent reality.” Lisa Gitelman and Virginia Jackson likewise critique the dominant assumption of data’s transparency: data, they insist, “are always already ‘cooked’ and never entirely ‘raw.’” The choices involved in data collection and preparation are not objective; they are shaped by the always subjective, often tacit, and sometimes shared presuppositions of the domain-specialist researcher. Practitioners of computational approaches to literature have shown that analyzing large corpora of texts “at a distance” may reveal phenomena not readily accessible through close reading of individual texts. Yet, the notion of distance fosters an illusion of objectivity that often occludes the preconditions of such work: the transformation of cultural artifacts into objects in a series that can be embedded into computational spaces. Printed codices must become .txt files; properties of artifacts must be organized into a .csv file. That is, texts, archival materials, and historical individuals must become data, in a process that involves choices about collection, curation, and preparation. The effects of this process seldom have been theorized as part of these large-scale analyses. To bring a more nuanced understanding of data’s mediated and constructed nature to the work of large-scale digital analysis requires a historicized and theorized account of the resources that enable it. New digital collections and databases have undoubtedly presented researchers with powerful ways to explore cultural artifacts, but their interfaces frequently efface the criteria for inclusion and exclusion in their underlying collections, bolstering the illusion that they are authoritative and comprehensive. As a way of accounting for the underlying instability of the digital archive, Bonnie Mak advocates an “archaeological approach” to collections, such as Early English Books Online, which bears the traces of earlier catalogs and microfilm resources. In this essay we model one such approach, theorizing a new dataset of our own creation as a description that mediates and transforms our relationship to the objects it describes. While quantitative humanities scholarship is currently preoccupied with how to make meaning from large-scale analyses, we wish to shift attention to the meaning-making problems on the other side of the numbers. Rather than the massive datasets, sophisticated computational models, or rich visualizations that characterize many digital humanities approaches, we offer an account of the preconditions that enable such approaches, and we do so with regard to a single feature—that of genre. In tracing the transformation of archival artifacts into data objects, we argue that a more reflective approach to quantitative analysis opens up new interpretive terrain—terrain that takes advantage of the opportunities available at scale while maintaining the humanities’ commitment to ambiguity, mediation, and situatedness. Such an approach is necessary if the digital humanities are to remain humanistic and avoid the worst excesses of data determinism

Zur Kenntnis der limnischen Rotatorienfauna Jamaikas (Rotifera) : Teil 2

Während der zweiten Feldphase (März bis April 1994) des Forschungsvorhabens über die Rotatorienfauna Jamaikas wurden 39 Proben genommen. Es konnten 135 Morphen nachgewiesen werden, davon 120 monogononte und 15 digononte Formen. Daneben wurden Formen aus 6 Gattungen beobachtet, deren Identifikation aufgrund von Konservierungsartefakten nicht möglich war. Von den 135 Morphen sind 61 zum ersten Mal für Jamaika nachgewiesen; insgesamt sind für diese Insel jetzt 211 Rotatorien bekannt. Die wichtigsten Arten werden mit Bemerkungen zu ihrer Taxonomie, Biogeographie und Ökologie dargestellt.During a second field study (March-April 1994) as part of a research project about limnetic rotifers in Jamaica 39 sampies were taken. 135 different forms were found: 120 Monogononta and 15 Digononta. Further types belonging to six genera could not be identified to species level, since determination was hindered by preserving artifacts. Out of 135 rotifers, 61 are listed for Jamaica for the first time; all in all, 211 rotifers are now known for this island. The most important species will be presented along with remarks regarding their taxonomy, biogeography and ecology

Zur Kenntnis der limnischen Rotatorienfauna Jamaikas (Rotatoria: Aschelminthes) : Teil 1 ; mit 2 Tabellen

Im Rahmen eines Forschungsvorhabens über die Rotatorienfauna Jamaikas wurden 117 Proben (Juni bis August 1993) genommen. Es konnten 149 Morphen nachgewiesen werden, davon 127 monogononte und 22 digononte Formen. Da Konservierungsartefakte die Identifizierung behinderten, konnten nur 143 Spezies bestimmt werden, darunter auch Cephalodella irisae n.sp. und Cephalodella intuta jamaicaiensis n.ssp. Die wichtigsten Arten werden mit Bemerkungen zu ihrer systematischen Stellung, Taxonomie und Biogeographie dargestellt.During a study (June-August 1993) 117 samples were taken in order to investigate the presence of limnetic rotifers in Jamaica. 149 different forms were found: 127 Monogononta and 22 Digononta. Since identification was hindered by preserving artifacts, only 143 species could be determined, including Cephalodella irisae n.sp. and Cephalodella intuta jamaicaiensis n.ssp. The most interesting species will be presented along with remarks regarding their systematical position, taxonomy and biogeography

Über die Rotatorienfauna in Bromelien-Phytotelmata in Jamaika (Aschelminthes: Rotatoria) : mit 2 Tabellen

Während eines Forschungsaufenthaltes in Jamaika, August bis Oktober 1991, wurden von einer Gruppe der AG Aquatische Ökologie der Universität Oldenburg/O. aus Phytotelmata der bodenständigen Bromelie Aechmea paniculigera GRISEB zwei Probenserien entnommen, um sie auf ihren Bestand an Rotatorien zu untersuchen. Es wurden 13 monogononte und 8 digononte (bdelloide) Morphen gefunden. Da neben lethalen auch Konservierungsartefakte die Identifizierung behinderten, konnten nur 17 Species bestimmt werden. Diese, darunter auch die bisher unbekannte Lecane (Monostyla) janetzkyi nov. spec., werden mit Bemerkungen zu ihrer systematischen Stellung, Taxonomie und Biogeographie sowie mit Abbildungen dargestellt.During a study visit to Jamaica (August-October 1991) a team of the AG Aquatic Ecology of Oldenburg University took two series of sampies from phytotelmata of the terrestrial bromeliad Aechmea paniculigera GRISEBin order to investigate the presence of rotifers. 13 Monogononta and 8 Digononta (Bdelloidae) were found. Since identification was not only hindered by lethal but also by preserving artifacts, only 17 species could be identified, including Lecane (Monostyla) janetzkyi nov. spec. These species will be presented along with specifications regarding their systematical position, taxonomy and biogeography as weil as by illustrations

Reading (and Not Reading) Anonymity: Daniel Defoe, An Essay on the Regulation of the Press and A Vindication of the Press

In this essay I take up the anonymous An Essay on the Regulation of the Press (1704) and A Vindication of the Press (1718), both regularly attributed to Daniel Defoe. While the pamphlets themselves consider anonymity essential to a work being read and interpreted, paradoxically, twentieth- and twenty-first century critics insist on correct attribution as the starting point for interpretation. The consequences and benefits of authorial attribution to these, and other, minor works are not insignificant. The attribution of authorship to a known author ensures that a work will survive; it may even ensure that a work is subject to study and analysis. However, authorial attribution may also foreclose study and analysis because the attributed work, if it is to be by the named author, must be made to cohere within a larger body of work