Expressionism and the unconfined female protagonist in three novels by Patrick White

This thesis examines how Patrick White’s expressive portrayal of the confined femaleprotagonists in three of his novels: The Aunt Story (1948), Voss (1957), and A Fringe ofLeaves (1976) enacts their ultimate liberation. I propose that the women are restricted bythe social conventions of their gender, but are given opportunities to escape theserestrictions via their expressive responses to their relationships and circumstances.Scholarly research has given limited attention to the key female characters of White’snovels in a way that does not closely analyse the expressive depictions of their conditionsand behaviour. Passages and episodes in the novels reveal their characters, conditions,relationships, and reactions or responses to the world around them. This requires theclose examination I provide in this thesis to determine how White’s expressionistic stylegives agency to his female characters. I analyse each novel from the perspective of thefemale protagonist: Theodora Goodman in The Aunt’s Story, Laura Trevelyan in Voss, andEllen Roxburgh in A Fringe of Leaves, and explore their narrative trajectories. The firstchapter considers Theodora Goodman’s life at Meroë, and her experiences as she movesbeyond her home to the Jardin Exotique and later her meeting with Holstius in America.I outline how Theodora’s transitory state psychologically and imaginatively enables her toreconcile illusion and reality. In the second chapter I contend that Laura Trevelyan is thetrue protagonist of Voss. I examine how her experience defies boundaries as sheimaginatively joins Voss on his expedition and demonstrates: “knowledge was never amatter of geography. Quite the reverse, it overflows all maps that exist” (V 275). Myclose analysis of Laura’s journey examines how White’s use of characterisation, gender,space, and relationships leads to Laura’s transcendent experience, eclipsing Voss. Thefinal chapter on Ellen Roxburgh in A Fringe of Leaves identifies the masquerades and rolesshe plays in direct response to the men in her life. My analysis of Ellen is split into twoclear parts: before and after her shipwreck and capture – before and after the socialmasks are removed – where I explore her agonising immersion into a more primitivesense of self. I conclude that at the end of their narratives all three discover somethingprofound, and present a visionary intelligence that transcends ordinary existence. White’sexpressive portrayal of the women throughout these experiences reveals their agency

Megan Day, Brenna Arakelian, Emily King, Natalie Virgil

“Work it Women!” covers various topics surrounding women in the workplace. The zine begins with a note from the authors, followed by a brief history of women in the workplace. Throughout the entire zine, there are historic facts, examples of successful women in the specific topics presented in the zine, and an overall theme of theme encouragement. The goal with this zine is to educate the reader on what women in the workplace experience, but not to discourage the reader from wanting to be a successful woman.https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/spring_2023/1003/thumbnail.jp

A sociological analysis of the sexual learning processes and practices of heterosexual young women in Northeast Brazil

PhD ThesisThe Brazilian Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais, introduced in 1996, recommend the coverage of sex education within all disciplines, throughout a young person’s education. However, implementation is often inconsistent, teachers frequently lack training and resources, and content continues to be largely biological. This research investigates this apparent “gap” between ostensibly progressive sex education policy, and the realities of young women’s sex education experiences. It focuses on how young women in Lençóis, Bahia, Northeast Brazil understand the role of the State in their sexual learning processes, and how State-sanctioned sex education interacts with local sexual culture and informal sex education practices in their everyday lives. This research contributes a semi-rural, interior study, based on young women’s experiences, to the literature on sex education in Brazil, which has predominantly centred on urban, coastal young people’s lives, and included young people’s perspectives only infrequently. The thesis prioritises local sexual culture in the study of sex education, and promotes an understanding of the State as active at the level of the everyday. Qualitative, semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty-seven women aged 18–29, and contextualised with additional material. Findings indicated that lençoense sex education lacked uniformity, was viewed largely negatively, and seen as a localised process, mostly dependent on individual teachers. State-sanctioned sex education provided powerful messages of risk and risk-reduction, responsibility and respectability, while other important themes were identified as “missing”. Participants often looked to “informal” sources to plug the gaps left by insufficient State-sanctioned sex education, and the enduring taboo of the topic in many lençoense homes.ESR

Tourism and Recreation in a Warmer Indiana: A Report from the Indiana Climate Change Impacts Assessment

Indiana’s climate and geography make it an attractive place for outdoor tourism and recreation. Many months of each year are ideal for boating, fishing, swimming, hiking, camping, and taking in outdoor sporting events or festivals. But the world’s climate is changing, and Indiana’s is no exception. Temperature increases already seen over the last hundred years will accelerate, potentially through the end of this century, and precipitation patterns will change. Those changes will affect the many facets of tourism and recreation throughout the state, including the types of tourism the state can offer, the timing of events, and the quality of visitor experiences. Climate change will have significant impacts on many sectors, including health, urban spaces, aquatic ecosystems, and forests – to name a few. All of these sectors are tied to the state’s tourism, recreation, and hospitality industries, which rely on natural and human-built systems to create successful visitor experiences. This report from the Indiana Climate Change Impacts Assessment (IN CCIA) uses climate projections for the state to explore likely impacts for Indiana’s tourism and recreation industries

Experience and response to a randomised controlled trial of extended-release injectable buprenorphine versus sublingual tablet buprenorphine and oral liquid methadone for opioid use disorder:protocol for a mixed-methods evaluation

INTRODUCTION: Opioid use disorder (OUD) is a debilitating and persistent disorder. The standard-of-care treatment is daily maintenance dosing of sublingual buprenorphine (BUP-SL) or oral methadone (MET). Monthly, extended-release, subcutaneous injectable buprenorphine (BUP-XR) has been developed to enhance treatment effectiveness. This study aims to investigate the experiences of participants who have been offered BUP-XR (evaluation 1), health-related quality-of-life among participants who have opted to receive BUP-XR longer term (evaluation 2) and the experiences of participants allocated to receive BUP-XR or BUP-SL or MET with the offer of adjunctive personalised psychosocial intervention (evaluation 3). METHODS AND ANALYSIS: Three qualitative–quantitative (mixed-methods) evaluations embedded in a five-centre, head-to-head, randomised controlled trial of BUP-XR versus BUP-SL and MET in the UK. Evaluation 1 is a four-centre interview anchored on an OUD-related topic guide and conducted after the 24-week trial endpoint. Evaluation 2 is a two-centre interview anchored on medications for opioid use disorder-specific quality-of-life topic guide conducted among participants after 12–24 months. Evaluation 3: single-centre interview after the 24-week trial endpoint. All evaluations include selected trial clinical measures, with evaluation 2 incorporating additional questionnaires. Target participant recruitment for evaluations 1 and 2 is 15 participants per centre (n=60 and n=30, respectively). Recruitment for evaluation 3 is 15 participants per treatment arm (n=30). Each evaluation will be underpinned by theory, drawing on constructs from the behavioural model for health service use or the health-related quality-of-life model. Qualitative data analysis will be by iterative categorisation. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Study protocol, consent materials and questionnaires were approved by the London-Brighton and Sussex research ethics committee (reference: 19/LO/0483) and the Health Research Authority (IRAS project number 255522). Participants will be provided with information sheets and informed written consent will be obtained for each evaluation. Study findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed scientific journals. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: 2018-004460-63

CareTrack Australia: assessing the appropriateness of adult healthcare: protocol for a retrospective medical record review

Introduction: In recent years in keeping with international best practice, clinical guidelines for common conditions have been developed, endorsed and disseminated by peak national and professional bodies. Yet evidence suggests that there remain considerable gaps between the care that is regarded as appropriate by such guidelines and the care received by patients. With an ageing population and increasing treatment options and expectations, healthcare is likely to become unaffordable unless more appropriate care is provided. This paper describes a study protocol that seeks to determine the percentage of healthcare encounters in which patients receive appropriate care for 22 common clinical conditions and the reasons why variations exist from the perspectives of both patients and providers. Methods/design: A random stratified sample of at least 1000 eligible participants will be recruited from a representative cross section of the adult Australian population. Participants' medical records from the years 2009 and 2010 will be audited to assess the appropriateness of the care received for 22 common clinical conditions by determining the percentage of healthcare encounters at which the care provided was concordant with a set of 522 indicators of care, developed for these conditions by a panel of 43 disease experts. The knowledge, attitudes and beliefs of participants and healthcare providers will be examined through interviews and questionnaires to understand the factors influencing variations in care.Tamara D Hunt, Shanthi A Ramanathan, Natalie A Hannaford, Peter D Hibbert, Jeffrey Braithwaite, Enrico Coiera, Richard O Day, Johanna I Westbrook, William B Runcima

Divergent compensatory responses to high-fat diet between C57BL6/J and C57BLKS/J inbred mouse strains

Impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and type 2 diabetes (T2DM) are polygenic disorders with complex pathophysiologies; recapitulating them with mouse models is challenging. Despite 70% genetic homology, C57BL/6J (BL6) and C57BLKS/J (BLKS) inbred mouse strains differ in response to diet- and genetic-induced obesity. We hypothesized these differences would yield insight into IGT and T2DM susceptibility and response to pharmacological therapies. To this end, male 8-wk-old BL6 and BLKS mice were fed normal chow (18% kcal from fat), high-fat diet (HFD; 42% kcal from fat), or HFD supplemented with the PPARγ agonist pioglitazone (PIO; 140 mg PIO/kg diet) for 16 wk. Assessments of body composition, glucose homeostasis, insulin production, and energy metabolism, as well as histological analyses of pancreata were undertaken. BL6 mice gained weight and adiposity in response to HFD, leading to peripheral insulin resistance that was met with increased β-cell proliferation and insulin production. By contrast, BLKS mice responded to HFD by restricting food intake and increasing activity. These behavioral responses limited weight gain and protected against HFD-induced glucose intolerance, which in this strain was primarily due to β-cell dysfunction. PIO treatment did not affect HFD-induced weight gain in BL6 mice, and decreased visceral fat mass, whereas in BLKS mice PIO increased total fat mass without improving visceral fat mass. Differences in these responses to HFD and effects of PIO reflect divergent human responses to a Western lifestyle and underscore the careful consideration needed when choosing mouse models of diet-induced obesity and diabetes treatment