“What thyng it is that wommen moost desiren”: Image and Self-Realization in The Wife of Bath\u27s Prologue and Tale

The Wife of Bath is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating of the Canterbury pilgrims. At the same time she is one of those literary figures whose complex character constantly seems to elude the reader\u27s judgement. Alisoun presents herself as a feminist advocating male subjection and female sovereignty in marriage, but her self-assertive behaviour cannot conceal an equally powerful longing for love and acceptance. Some critics therefore praise the psychological depth of the Wife\u27s portrayal while others label her a stock character and join in the derisive laughter they believe her fellow pilgrims to bestow on her. This thesis explores how the Wife, oscillating among several roles, plays with and manipulates different images of women, and to what didactic and rhetorical purposes she does so. The first part of her Prologue is dominated by her defense against—or, rather, attack on—the antifeminist image of women. She convincingly demonstrates that the authority on which the clerks base their negative attitude towards the female sex is more than dubious and that it can easily be refuted in the light of experience. In her account of her five marriages she consequently turns the marital hierarchy upside down and advocates female supremacy. She herself has gained personal independence in her first three marriages by bartering sexuality for material gain, at the cost, however, of love and affection. It is in her fifth marriage with Jankyn the clerk that Alisoun tries to make up for what so far she has been missing, but only after a violent clash do both spouses find a viable mode of living a happy marriage. What leads the male protagonist to a new attitude towards women is only hinted at in the Prologue but amply elaborated in the ensuing tale. The \u27lusty bachelor\u27 who meets a young maiden and rapes her is the representative of an attitude that regards women as little else than commodities and objects of sexual gratification. The ensuing quest, however, and the hag\u27s pillow lecture teach him that his attitude towards women is not based on personal experience but on a questionable tradition which ignores his actual partner. Moreover, he comes to realize that the way in which women present themselves to him corresponds directly to the image he has of them. Only after he has discarded all these images is he able to see his wife as she really is and can she free herself of her ugly guise. What both the hag\u27s marriage to the knight and the Wife\u27s fifth marriage point to is a marital state in which the notion of dominance has altogether been abandoned, giving room to mutual love and acceptance based on the self-realization of both partners

“What thyng it is that wommen moost desiren”: Image and Self-Realization in The Wife of Bath\u27s Prologue and Tale

The Wife of Bath is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating of the Canterbury pilgrims. At the same time she is one of those literary figures whose complex character constantly seems to elude the reader\u27s judgement. Alisoun presents herself as a feminist advocating male subjection and female sovereignty in marriage, but her self-assertive behaviour cannot conceal an equally powerful longing for love and acceptance. Some critics therefore praise the psychological depth of the Wife\u27s portrayal while others label her a stock character and join in the derisive laughter they believe her fellow pilgrims to bestow on her. This thesis explores how the Wife, oscillating among several roles, plays with and manipulates different images of women, and to what didactic and rhetorical purposes she does so. The first part of her Prologue is dominated by her defense against—or, rather, attack on—the antifeminist image of women. She convincingly demonstrates that the authority on which the clerks base their negative attitude towards the female sex is more than dubious and that it can easily be refuted in the light of experience. In her account of her five marriages she consequently turns the marital hierarchy upside down and advocates female supremacy. She herself has gained personal independence in her first three marriages by bartering sexuality for material gain, at the cost, however, of love and affection. It is in her fifth marriage with Jankyn the clerk that Alisoun tries to make up for what so far she has been missing, but only after a violent clash do both spouses find a viable mode of living a happy marriage. What leads the male protagonist to a new attitude towards women is only hinted at in the Prologue but amply elaborated in the ensuing tale. The \u27lusty bachelor\u27 who meets a young maiden and rapes her is the representative of an attitude that regards women as little else than commodities and objects of sexual gratification. The ensuing quest, however, and the hag\u27s pillow lecture teach him that his attitude towards women is not based on personal experience but on a questionable tradition which ignores his actual partner. Moreover, he comes to realize that the way in which women present themselves to him corresponds directly to the image he has of them. Only after he has discarded all these images is he able to see his wife as she really is and can she free herself of her ugly guise. What both the hag\u27s marriage to the knight and the Wife\u27s fifth marriage point to is a marital state in which the notion of dominance has altogether been abandoned, giving room to mutual love and acceptance based on the self-realization of both partners

Directed Molecular Stacking for Engineered Fluorescent Three-Dimensional Reduced Graphene Oxide and Coronene Frameworks

[EN] Three‐dimensional fluorescent graphene frameworks with controlled porous morphologies are of significant importance for practical applications reliant on controlled structural and electronic properties, such as organic electronics and photochemistry. Here we report a synthetically accessible approach concerning directed aromatic stacking interactions to give rise to new fluorogenic 3D frameworks with tuneable porosities achieved through molecular variations. The binding interactions between the graphene‐like domains present in the in situ‐formed reduced graphene oxide (rGO) with functional porphyrin molecules lead to new hybrids via an unprecedented solvothermal reaction. Functional free‐base porphyrins featuring perfluorinated aryl groups or hexyl chains at their meso‐ and β‐positions were employed in turn to act as directing entities for the assembly of new graphene‐based and foam‐like frameworks and of their corresponding coronene‐based hybrids. Investigations in the dispersed phase and in thin‐film by XPS, SEM and FLIM shed light onto the nature of the aromatic stacking within functional rGO frameworks (denoted rGOFs) which was then modelled semi‐empirically and by DFT calculations. The pore sizes of the new emerging reduced graphene oxide hybrids are tuneable at the molecular level and mediated by the bonding forces with the functional porphyrins acting as the “molecular glue”. Single crystal X‐ray crystallography described the stacking of a perfluorinated porphyrin with coronene, which can be employed as a molecular model for understanding the local aromatic stacking order and charge transfer interactions within these rGOFs for the first time. This opens up a new route to controllable 3D framework morphologies and pore size from the Ångstrom to the micrometre scale. Theoretical modelling showed that the porosity of these materials is mainly due to the controlled inter‐planar distance between the rGO, coronene or graphene sheets. The host‐guest chemistry involves the porphyrins acting as guests held through π‐π stacking, as demonstrated by XPS. The objective of this study is also to shed light into the fundamental localised electronic and energy transfer properties in these new molecularly engineered porous and fluorogenic architectures, aiming in turn to understand how functional porphyrins may exert stacking control over the notoriously disordered local structure present in porous reduced graphene oxide fragments. By tuning the porosity and the distance between the graphene sheets using aromatic stacking with porphyrins, it is also possible to tune the electronic structure of the final nanohybrid material, as indicated by FLIM experiments on thin films. Such nanohybrids with highly controlled pores dimensions and morphologies open the way to new design and assembly of storage devices and applications incorporating π‐conjugated molecules and materials and their π‐stacks may be relevant towards selective separation membranes, water purification and biosensing applications.S.I.P. and S.W.B. thank The Royal Society and STFC for funding. B.Y.M. thanks the University of Bath for a studentship (ORS). D.G.C. thanks the Fundación General CSIC for funding (ComFuturo Program). Dr. Jose A. Ribeiro Martins, Professors Jeremy K. M. Sanders and Paul Raithby are acknowledged for training, helpful discussions and porphyrin supramolecular chemistry. The S.I.P. group thanks the EPSRC for funding to the Centre of Graphene Science (EP/K017160/1) and to the Centre for Doctoral Training in Sustainable Chemical Technologies (EP/L016354/1). The authors thank EPSRC National Service for Mass Spectrometry at Swansea and EPSRC National Service for Crystallography at Southampton for data collection. The authors also acknowledge the ERC for the Consolidator Grant O2SENSE (617107, 2014–2019)

Ferrocenylethenyl-substituted oxadiazoles with phenolic and nitro anchors as sensitizers in dye sensitized solar cells

Three new ferrocenyl oxadiazoles, viz. (E)-2-(4-hydroxyphenyl)-5-(2-ferrocenyl-ethen-1-yl)-1,3,4-oxadiazole (D2), (E)-2-(4-nitrophenyl)-5-(2-ferrocenyl-ethen-1-yl)-1,3,4-oxadiazole (D3) and (E)-3-(4-nitrophenyl)-5-[5-(2-ferroceneylethen-1-yl)-1,3,4-oxadiazol-2-yl]-1,2,4-oxadiazole (D4) derived from (E)-3-ferrocenylacrylic acid (D1) having phenolic or nitro anchors, have been synthesized and characterized using microanalyses and relevant spectroscopic techniques. UV-Vis spectroscopic studies indicate that with respect to ferrocene, the electronic absorption bands of the new compounds are bathochromically shifted up to 600 nm with a concomitant enhancement in their intensities. All four compounds have been used as photosensitizers in TiO 2 -based dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The photovoltaic performances and charge transport properties (EIS spectra) of these compounds were studied to appraise their dye performance. All four compounds displayed good photovoltaic performances. However, compounds D2 and D4 displayed superior performance, which might be due to the better electronic communication between the ferrocenyl moiety and the six membered aromatic ring with their -OH/NO 2 anchors having five membered oxadiazole spacers, as well as the high dye loading of these compounds on the TiO 2 surface, which suppresses charge recombination, prolongs electron lifetime, and decreases the total resistance of DSSCs. The assembly fabricated using D4 performed better with an overall conversion efficiency η of 4.70%, J sc of 10.33 mA cm -2 and V oc of -0.712 V. </p

Full-wave modeling of the O-X mode conversion in the Pegasus toroidal experiment

The ordinary-extraordinary (O-X) mode conversion is modeled with the aid of a 2D full-wave code in the Pegasus toroidal experiment as a function of the launch angles. It is shown how the shape of the plasma density profile in front of the antenna can significantly influence the mode conversion efficiency and, thus, the generation of electron Bernstein waves (EBWs). It is therefore desirable to control the density profile in front of the antenna for successful operation of an EBW heating and current drive system. On the other hand, the conversion efficiency is shown to be resilient to vertical displacements of the plasma as large as ±10 cm

Are lay people good at recognising the symptoms of schizophrenia?

©2013 Erritty, Wydell. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Aim: The aim of this study was to explore the general public’s perception of schizophrenia symptoms and the need to seekhelp for symptoms. The recognition (or ‘labelling’) of schizophrenia symptoms, help-seeking behaviours and public awareness of schizophrenia have been suggested as potentially important factors relating to untreated psychosis. Method: Participants were asked to rate to what extent they believe vignettes describing classic symptoms (positive and negative) of schizophrenia indicate mental illness. They were also asked if the individuals depicted in the vignettes required help or treatment and asked to suggest what kind of help or treatment. Results: Only three positive symptoms (i.e., Hallucinatory behaviour, Unusual thought content and Suspiciousness) of schizophrenia were reasonably well perceived (above 70%) as indicating mental illness more than the other positive or negative symptoms. Even when the participants recognised that the symptoms indicated mental illness, not everyone recommended professional help. Conclusion: There may be a need to improve public awareness of schizophrenia and psychosis symptoms, particularly regarding an awareness of the importance of early intervention for psychosis

The receptor PTPRU is a redox sensitive pseudophosphatase

Abstract: The receptor-linked protein tyrosine phosphatases (RPTPs) are key regulators of cell-cell communication through the control of cellular phosphotyrosine levels. Most human RPTPs possess an extracellular receptor domain and tandem intracellular phosphatase domains: comprising an active membrane proximal (D1) domain and an inactive distal (D2) pseudophosphatase domain. Here we demonstrate that PTPRU is unique amongst the RPTPs in possessing two pseudophosphatase domains. The PTPRU-D1 displays no detectable catalytic activity against a range of phosphorylated substrates and we show that this is due to multiple structural rearrangements that destabilise the active site pocket and block the catalytic cysteine. Upon oxidation, this cysteine forms an intramolecular disulphide bond with a vicinal “backdoor” cysteine, a process thought to reversibly inactivate related phosphatases. Importantly, despite the absence of catalytic activity, PTPRU binds substrates of related phosphatases strongly suggesting that this pseudophosphatase functions in tyrosine phosphorylation by competing with active phosphatases for the binding of substrates