The creative writer in the public sphere

This thesis provides an analysis of the creative writer in contemporary Britain, using both literary and cultural theory to define and understand the roles available to the writer. It explores how these roles are interpreted by writers. The thesis offers new research and insights into the scope of current patronage practices, examines how the writer engages with these new roles, and assesses the potential impact on the writer, the reader and literature.Based on research conducted in the UK, this thesis focuses on four major contexts: the writer in residence, the prize culture, the literary festival, and the writer in the blogosphere. It considers how the writer’s role has been reconstructed in different social and cultural contexts. In addition, this study highlights writers’ perception of their public role and their position in society; the multiple and complex power relations inherent in these roles; the increasingly public presence of the writer; the reader-writer relationship, and the impact on the literature produced. Reflecting my own literary interests and practices, it focuses on the work and experiences of poets and novelists, rather than on those of dramatists and non-fiction writers.This study contributes to the as yet limited body of research into contemporary patronage practices. Furthermore, the thesis contributes to the historicising and theorisation of the creative writer which links the individual experience of writers with social and cultural structures and processes, making reference to the theories of Theodor Adorno, Roland Barthes, Pierre Bourdieu, Terry Eagleton and Jürgen Habermas. The research sheds light on the writer’s struggle to maintain a balance between gainful employment and creativity while negotiating the complex power relations that affect their literary output and their socio-cultural relations with patron and public

Using Machine Learning Techniques to Predict a Risk Score for New Members of a Chit Fund Group

Predicting the risk score of new and potential customers is used across the financial industry. By implementing the prediction of risk scores for their customers a chit fund company can improve the knowledge and customer understanding without relying on human knowledge. Data is collected on each customer before they have taken out credit and during the time they contribute to a chit fund. Having collected the necessary data, the company can then decide whether modelling customer risk would benefit them. As the data is available historically, one aspect of risk score prediction will be the focus of this thesis, supervised machine learning. Supervised machine learning techniques use historic data to ‘learn a model of the relationship between a set of descriptive features and a target feature’ (Kelleher, Mac Namee, & D’Arcy, 2015). There are many supervised machine learning techniques; support vector machine (SVM), logistic regression and decision trees will be the focal point of this thesis. The main objective of this project attempts to predict a risk score for new or potential subscribers of a chit fund company. The models generated would be suitable for use before a customer joins a chit fund group as well as while the customer is taking part in the group, measuring risk before becoming a subscriber and the behavioural risk while with the company. The objective is to extend research already carried out to predict a score from zero to one identifying the probability of default. Default, for the purpose of this project, is defined as being more than 90 days late with a payment. The data of real chit fund subscribers was used to train and test the models built for the project. A factor reduction technique was used to identify key variables, and multiple models were tested to determine which gives the best results. The second objective of this project will look at the subscriber network. This section of the project will check for links between subscribers, and investigate a possible link between subscribers and their chance of default. Variables such as address and nominee will be the focus in this section. iii The most successful supervised machine learning model was the random forest model with precision of 59% and recall of 92%. Accuracy for this model was the highest of each of the models in the experiment at 85%. However, this is not the most trustworthy evaluation measure for this project as the dataset is unbalanced. A combination of 300 decision trees were applied in this model. Using the classification method, the class that was predicted by the majority of trees was selected as the final prediction. This achieved high accuracy of the dataset from the chit fund company, Kyepot. Social network analysis found that there was no unusual relationship between subscribers that went into default with regards to the area in which they live or their nominees. Supervised machine learning techniques have been shown to be a useful tool in the financial industry. This project suggests that these techniques may also be useful tools for chit fund companies. This project evaluates four different techniques suggesting the random forest technique is the most useful for this chit fund company

Separation and attachment in higher education

Gerhart Rott: ATTACHMENT AND SEPARATION THEORY IN HIGHER EDUCATION AND STUDENT COUNSELLING This paper stress' the importance of understanding the current interaction of higher education and psychotherapy within students' contextually defined environment. This environment doesn't mirror an objective point of view but is always constructed in an individual world. It is a psychological context which is related to others e.g. learning environments and institutional settings. Thanks to attachment theory (Bowlby, J. and Ainsworth, M . and others) we can better understand the ways interactions in early childhood influence the kind of context one creates as an adult . In students' lives, in their learning environment, and in higher education in general, transition processes play an import ant role. (e.g. entry into university, leaving the university). Within those transitions separation and attachment are newly balanced. To clarify some of the risks and resources for these transitions the balancing process presents itself as a developmental perspective on student counselling and higher education in which both - student counselling and high education - might be realized as resources for each other. Peter Figge: ATTACHMENT STRATEGIES IN THERAPEUTIC RELATIONSHIPS. VALUING A LOOK AT BOTH SIDES OF THE DYAD Therapeutic research has well established the fact that the quality of the therapeutic relationship may be assumed to be one of the major factors responsible for therapy outcome (Grawe 1990a, b, 1994, Figge, 1980, 1982, 1999). Therapists in the process of therapy have been described by clients and outside raters, using different means such as questionnaires, pictures, tape, and video), and research has described connections between of therapist quality and therapeutic change. Recent publications have focused on aspects of the pre-therapy situation. On the influence regarding the expectation of clients towards the relationship to their future therapist and on the compatibility of attachment strategies of client and therapist (Höger 1995, 1996). Therapists offer professional types of well defined relationships, mostly dependent on the professional school they belong to, dependent on their professional experience or the therapeutic setting - and of course dependent on the therapists' personal background. Clients on the other hand are generally looking for professional help, and are mostly lacking any experience of this type of relationship. Thus their expectations and wishes cover a wide range of conscious and unconscious contents. Client and therapist have one thing in common though. They can both look back on their individual backgrounds of personal attachment experiences. Usually the difference between client and therapist can be found in the degrees to which they have access to these experiences and have integrated them into their personality.Having been introduced to the subject of our conference by previous papers I would like to skip outlining the framework of attachment theory ( especially referring to the research of Bowlby (1987, 1988), Ainsworth (1978), and Main and their coworkers (1985). My personal interest as a clinical psychologist has lately focused on the possible contribution of attachment theory to improve aspects of therapy indication. In improving therapy prognosis it doesn't seem sufficient taking into account if a certain type of therapy would be suitable for an individual client.On top of this it should be kept in mind that a therapeutic relationship is not only a meeting of two functions, that is of a therapist and a client but of two individuals with their different, highly personal attachment strategies and their respective representations. And I believe that the compatibility of these strategies - in whichever dynamic form - might have a decisive influence on the outcome of the therapy point of view but is always constructed in an individual world. It is a psychological context which is related to others e.g. learning environments and institutional settings. Thanks to attachment theory (Bowlby, J. and Ainsworth, M. and others) we can better understand the ways interactions in early childhood influence the kind of context one creates as an adult. In students' lives, in their learning environment, and in higher education in general, transition processes play an important role. (e.g. entry into university, leaving the university). Within those transitions separation and attachment are newly balanced. To clarify some of the risks and resources for these transitions the balancing process presents itself as a developmental perspective on student counselling and higher education in which both - student counselling and high education - might be realized as resources for each other. Susanna Maione and Alessandra Franceschini: CUORI - A PLACE FOR UNIVERSITY STUDENTS TO DISCOVER THEIR ADULTHOOD In Italy the separation/ attachment phenomenon is more accentuated than in other European countries. Young people leave their parent's home very late, living, protected in a situation where they have no responsibility. The assuming of an adult identity is therefore postponed, as is also the moment of separation from the family and the autonomy of the young person. CUORI (University centre for counselling and information) a psychological counselling service of ESU (Organisation for the rights of study) is a neutral and undifferentiated place for college students. CUORI seeks to meet a student need to be looked after but the same time his/her need to be autonomous, encouraging his/her growth and exploration of his/her own resources and self-determination abilities. In this paper a few cases are presented that could explain the kind of counselling that our centre offers to college students. Each case is presented bearing in mind the aforesaid Italian separation/attachment phenomenon, considering also attachment in its cross-cultural meaning. Prijna F. van Duuren A.T.M. Boekhorst P.H.W.M. Deuss: Group Psychotherapy with adolescents can be operationalised as a development oriented model of treatment. Adolescents who are teased by peers when they are 13 years old, do not attach themselves to the peer group. In the therapy group those teased students get the opportunity to attach to a peer group, and so develop their social and scholastic abilities. The subject of the present research project is the relationship of a good passage through the second false of attachment, what means attachment to the peer group, with study-attitude. Assessment scales have been used for the group therapy-clients on two different moments with an interval of half a year between them. The following scales have been used: a personality inventory (NVM, this is a shortened MMPI), a Dutch Autonomy scale and two study-behaviour scales. This paper presents the initial finding and a discussion of the relationship between study-attitude and group psychotherapy. Jean Paul Broonen: ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AND ATTACHMENT Very little information is available about why, in French-speaking Universities so many students withdraw from or do not participate in support sessions during the academic year. Romainville (1992) and Broonen (1998) proposed hypotheses to explain why some or most of the students do not participate in helping sessions: self-reliance inside an individualistic society, instrumental attitude rooting in secondary school, self-handicapping, procrastination, external locus of control, etc. The present study aims at exploring the relationships between collective self-esteem and, firstly, participating in help sessions after failing in examinations, and secondly, achievement in the next set of examinations by undergraduate students. Data presented here pertain to the measure of students' collective self-esteem as applied to the academic institution and include comparison on that construct between students who participate in help sessions and students who do not. Declan Aherne: STUDENT STRESS IN THE CONTEXT OF ATTACHMENT AND SEPARATION An exploration of the development of the dependence-independence polarity of both male and female students. Kegan (1982) and others have described the development of both dependence and independence in the young adult. Gilligan (1982) highlighted differences in this aspect of development between males and females. Aherne (1997) sugggested that student stress for many students may involve struggle with this aspect of their development e.g. male students many have more difficulty than females in forming relationships, whilst females may struggle more with separation issues. Aherne (1997) has proposed a profile of stressed students congruent with this aspect of development and stress. The aim of the current paper is to explore this matter in greater detail amongst students attending for counseling. Individual case studies will be used regarding the nature of the students development of independence. Included in the study will be an assessment of the therapeutic process in resolving any polarity issues. Ann Conlon: THE TRANSITION INTO HIGHER EDUCATION. DEVELOPMENTAL ISSUES ENCOUNTERED BY STUDENTS This paper addresses the concept of transition within the context of the students' struggle to grow and develop - academically, emotionally and socially. As normal developmental processes, including separation and individuation are inevitably going to overlap with being a student, the academic and social commitments which are essential to university life force the student into facing those developmental issues which will cause difficulty if the individual is not ready to tackle them, or if they have become stuck at some point. A number of clinical vignettes are presented to illustrate the problems and symptoms which may arise if the transition into university reactivates unresolved conflicts of the past. This will inevitably entail examining the quality of the students' attachment to their family of origin, and of how they were helped or not within their family to cope with earlier transitional phases in childhood and adolescence. Ernst Frank: SEPARATION AND ATTACHMENT AND THE BASIC ABILITY OF DIFFERENTIATION & SUMMARISING IN ACADEMIC WORK The present paper examines writing difficulties in the context of a disturbed in ego development. On the path from symbiosis to individuation (M. Mahler), ego develops through separation and attachment. For instance an extensive piece of written work requires the common ability to differentiate & summarize - on the one hand is the analyzing, making something precise, moving up closer to get to the details - and on the other hand at a distance is finding the essential and the main statement, making a well-formed and integrated complete structure. This is a basic academic ability, which has to been seen in context to the development of a well-formed and differentiated ego/identity and the crucial task of separation and of establishing independence. An ability, in contrast to a saying. To see the wood - because of the trees. Stig Poulsen: ATTACHMENT AND SEPARATION IN INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP PSYCHOTHERAPY This paper examines the issue of separation and attachment in both individual and group psychtherapy. The paper begins by discussing object relations theory and attachment theory in particluar. The therapeutic alliance and the nature of the clients experience in psychotherapy are discussed in some detail in order to demonstrate the significance of attachment processes. The author then goes on to address group psychotherapy. He outlines the various models of group development and notes the fact that changes occur in the importance of different therapeutic factors in the course of the groups lifespan. Finally, the results are presented of interviews carried out with individual members of two groups, for students with procrastination problems and thesis anxiety. These results confirm the original hypothesis of the importance of separation and attachment issues for students working in groups but add some further complexity to the issue which the author attempts to resolve. Mette Bauer and Trine Fredtoft: IN ORDER TO COMPLETE YOU HAVE TO SEPARATE Students with thesis and essay anxiety often fear separation from parents and from university, which makes it difficult for them to attach themselves to a world outside the family and institutional boundaries. Helping them take the step to complete their thesis will enable them to a more grown up identity. Participating in a short term psychodynamic group may facilitate this process. In this paper the authors set out their experiences with short term psychodynamic groups for university students with procrastination and thesis anxiety, including the group-members evaluation of the previous two groups. Ann Clara: UNIVERSITY LIFE AND THE DELAY OF ADULTHOOD The present paper discusses University life in the context of it being a moratorium on development, facilitating the delay of development into adulthood. For many students, their registration at the university marks the beginning of their first prolonged separation from home. Learning to be alone, to turn this condition to profitable use and to enjoy it, is of major importance for students in order to be able to function autonomously as regards their studies. Obviously this is a very demanding task: homesickness, loneliness, depressive moods and lack of self confidence are frequent complaints among freshers, consulting in the University Mental Health Centre of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. At the other end, those who finish their studies have to try and find a place in the professional world and in society in general. Some tend to postpone this last step, for example by engaging in post-graduate studies or becoming members of the academic staff. An academic career may be an elegant solution of those who do not want to grow up completely and wish to stay in the protective environment of the university. Graça Figueiredo Dias: DEVELOPMENTAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN STUDENTS SEEKING AND NOT SEEKING PSYCHOLOGICAL COUNSELLING* The psychological separation from parents, the development of the capacity for love interaction and self-esteem consolidation are some of the developmental tasks of young people. This study examines the differences shown in the capacity to resolve these developmental tasks between students seeking and not seeking psychological counselling. Two scales evaluating important dimensions of autonomy construction and of capacity to establish love relationships, constructed by the author, together with the Rosenberg (1965) selfesteem scale, and a parental separation inventory (PSI; Hoffman, 1984), were applied to a sample of 315 university students not having sought counselling, and to a sample of 40 students having sought counselling. The results show the existence of significant differences in all those variables. The implications for counselling with university students are discussed. This paper examines more thoroughly some of the ideas exposed in my communication "Assessment and treatment of university students with separation/attachment difficulties", made to the FEDORA Conference 1999

Carbohydrate utilization by baby pigs

The carbohydrate ingested by the growing-finishing pig is mostly of the polysaccharide type. Since the young pig does not efficiently utilize polysaccharides, considerable amounts of the disaccharides, sucrose and lactose, and the monosaccharides, glucose and fructose, are used in baby pig diets. The disaccharides which are ingested are hydrolyzed to monosaccharides within the mucosal cells of the small intesine, from whence the monosaccharides are absorbed. Absorption of monosaccharides takes place readily only from the small intestine, and occurs predominantly by way of the portal blood (Wilson, 1962, p. 73). Limited absorption from the stomach and large intestine has been reported to occur under some conditions but it is quantitatively unimportant compared to absorption from the small intestine. Furthermore, it has now been adequately demonstrated that absorption of sugars from the small intestine occurs by both passive and active processes, the former being an energy-independent entrance of sugar into the cell, the latter an energy-dependent movement against a concentration difference (Crane, 1950). The nature of the active transport system has not yet been fully elucidated

Electrochemical and structural properties of some 1,2,3,5 and 1,3,2,4 dithiadiazolylium salts and related compounds

This work centres around the electrochemical and structural studies of 1,2,3,5 and 1,3,2,4 dithiadiazolylium salts and associated radical derivatives. Chapter one provides a brief history of sulphur nitrogen chemistry, in particular developments of 1,2,3,5 and 1,3,2,4 dithiadiazolyUum/ heterocyclic species. Also a quick outline of the pathways my research took are discussed. The following chapter is solely dedicated to the electrochemical investigations of (i) mono substituted aryl 1,2,3,4 and 1,3,2,4, (ii) di substituted aryl 1,2,3,4 and 1,3,2,4 and (iii) pyridyl 1,2,3,5 dithiadiazolylium salts and associated derivatives. This electrochemical process of interest involved the reduction of the 6π dithiadiazolylium cation going to the 7π radical. This was studied using a technique called Cyclic Voltammetry. Results from this survey revealed that all the derivatives studied were quasi-reversible to the same degree under these experimental conditions. The E(_pc/2) potentials of meta and Para derivatives were observed to increase with acceptor property of the substituent group attached. Using the relationship E(_pc/2) = σp, when the potentials of these derivatives were plotted against corresponding Hammett a values two excellent linear free energy relationships for both sets of derivatives were seen to exist. For the other systems this is not found to be so. Rationalisation of these responses are described by examination of electronic, solvent and steric factors of analogous benzoic acid and dithiadiazolylium/zolyl derivatives and how they compare with each other. Chapter three concentrates on the structural properties of dithiadiazolyls and discusses the potential of these types of derivatives to form conducting, charge transfer or magnetically interesting materials. The X-ray structures of the following compounds were obtained and are described in detail: pMeS-C(_6)H(_4)-CNSSN•, pF-C(_6)H(_4)-CNSSN•, pCF(_3)-C(_6)H(_4)-CNSSN•, pNO(_2)-C(_6)H(_4)-CNSSN•, mBr- C(_6)H(_4)-CNSSN•, mClpMe-C(_6)H(_4)-CNSSN•,| mC(_5)H(_4)N-CNSSN• and pC(_5)F(_4)N-CNSSN•. Comparisons of how these and similar dithiadiazolyl compounds pack with a view to rationalising packing trends, in order to molecular tailor materials for applications, is tackled as well. The forth chapter concerns the experimental details of this research and features information on technical procedures, synthetic routes and characterisation on the compounds examined. Finally chapter five attempts to bridge the results of the previous chapters all together

The functioning of the election primary in the state of Massachusetts

Typewritten sheets in cover. Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University Bibliography: 6 p. at end. Clipped in, p. 35A: c. 1, official ballot of the Democratic Party, Boston ... c. 2, official ballot of the Republican Party, Chelsea .. c. 2, official ballot of the Republican party, Chelsea .

Developing attitudes through the teaching of history

Thesis (Ed. M.)--Boston University, 1940. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 82-83

A placement study of the concept of checks and balances in our federal government at the junior high school level

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston Universit

Distance from a fishing community explains fish abundance in a no-take zone with weak compliance

There are numerous examples of no-take marine reserves effectively conserving fish stocks within their boundaries. However, no-take reserves can be rendered ineffective and turned into ‘paper parks’ through poor compliance and weak enforcement of reserve regulations. Long-term monitoring is thus essential to assess the effectiveness of marine reserves in meeting conservation and management objectives. This study documents the present state of the 15-year old no-take zone (NTZ) of South El Ghargana within the Nabq Managed Resource Protected Area, South Sinai, Egyptian Red Sea. Previous studies credited willing compliance by the local fishing community for the increased abundances of targeted fish within the designated NTZ boundaries compared to adjacent fished or take-zones. We compared benthic habitat and fish abundance within the NTZ and the adjacent take sites open to fishing, but found no significant effect of the reserve. Instead, the strongest evidence was for a simple negative relationship between fishing pressure and distance from the closest fishing village. The abundance of targeted piscivorous fish increased significantly with increasing distance from the village, while herbivorous fish showed the opposite trend. This gradient was supported by a corresponding negative correlation between the amount of discarded fishing gear observed on the reef and increasing distance from the village. Discarded fishing gear within the NTZ suggested decreased compliance with the no-take regulations. Our findings indicate that due to non-compliance the no-take reserve is no longer functioning effectively, despite its apparent initial successes and instead a gradient of fishing pressure exists with distance from the nearest fishing community