Rewriting Alice : Victorian women's responses to Lewis Carroll's Alice's adventures in Wonderland

Within a few years of Lewis Carroll‟s publication of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), other authors tried to replicate aspects of the Alice books. In fact, Carroll states that he even started a collection of “„books of the Alice type‟” (quoted in Sigler “Authorizing” 351). According to Carolyn Sigler and Sanjay Sircar, between 150 and 200 texts were written imitating, responding to, and/or parodying Carroll‟s Alice (xi and 45). Furthermore, many of the 150 to 200 imitations were written by Victorian women, some of whom were well-known authors. Also during this period, what Anna Krugovoy Silver now calls a “culture of anorexia” was developing in Britain (27). Femininity was closely aligned with anorexia since “proper” women were supposed to exhibit behaviors, including food restriction, which were signs of anorexia. Furthermore, anorexia and its denial of hunger were related to the purity and asexuality of Victorian women. The anorexic became the image of the ideal Victorian woman. This paper will explore Alice imitations written by three female authors: Jean Ingelow‟s Mopsa the Fairy (1869), Juliana Horatia Ewing‟s “Amelia and the Dwarfs” (1870), and Christina Rossetti‟s Speaking Likenesses (1874). I argue that Alice exhibits several features of a culture of anorexia, and in their responses to Carroll, particularly through depictions of eating and growth, Ingelow, Ewing, and Rossetti sometimes uphold and sometimes challenge this Victorian culture of anorexia. All three critique the preference for the childlike female body, which is clearly present in Alice, while they present a range of responses to food restriction and controlling the appetite.Department of EnglishThesis (M.A.

HgZnTe-based detectors for LWIR NASA applications

The initial goal was to grow and characterize HgZnTe and determine if it indeed had the advantageous properties that were predicted. Researchers grew both bulk and liquid phase epitaxial HgZnTe. It was determined that HgZnTe had the following properties: (1) microhardness at least 50 percent greater than HgCdTe of equivalent bandgap; (2) Hg annealing rates of at least 2 to 4 times longer than HgCdTe; and (3) higher Hg vacancy formation energies. This early work did not focus on one specific composition (x-value) of HgZnTe since NASA was interested in HgZnTe's potential for a variety of applications. Since the beginning of 1989, researchers have been concentrating, however, on the liquid phase growth of very long wavelength infrared (VLWIR) HgZnTe (cutoff approx. equals 17 microns at 65K) to address the requirements of the Earth Observing System (EOS). Since there are no device models to predict the advantages in reliability one can gain with increased microhardness, surface stability, etc., one must fabricate HgZnTe detectors and assess their relative bake stability (accelerated life test behavior) compared with HgCdTe devices fabricated in the same manner. Researchers chose to fabricate HIT detectors as a development vehicle for this program because high performance in the VLWIR has been demonstrated with HgCdTe HIT detectors and the HgCdTe HIT process should be applicable to HgZnTe. HIT detectors have a significant advantage for satellite applications since these devices dissipate much less power than conventional photoconductors to achieve the same responsivity

Microalgae Preconcentration by Sedimentation and by Addition of Montmorillonite Clay Coagulant

There is great interest in the use of microalgae as a feedstock for biofuels, potentially allowing for the development of a sustainable fuel source to replace existing use of petroleum-based fuels. While microalgae is easily grown, it is energy intensive to harvest because it grows at concentrations as low as 0.01%. Centrifugation can concentrate the microalgae to a useable 10-15%, but has a high energy cost. “Preconcentration” methods, particularly gravity sedimentation with or without the addition of a coagulant, are promising as they may achieve a microalgae concentration of 2-3% at a lower cost. The combination of preconcentration methods with centrifugation may bring the energy cost down enough to make the production process economically viable. Here, the efficiency (percent of microalgae that is removed from the water) of a microalgae sedimentation tank was tested at flow rates of 50-680 mL/minute, along with the microalgae concentration that each flow rate produced. In a separate jar test, montmorillonite clay was added to aid in coagulation of the microalgae by neutralizing the negative surface charge of the individual particles. Findings show that increasing the sedimentation flow rate decreases the efficiency but increases the concentration of microalgae produced. Additionally, an optimal coagulant dosage of 150 mg/L was established for montmorillonite clay

Corticospinal Excitability During a Perspective-Taking Task : Implications for Self Vs. Other Processing

Only by understanding the uniquely human ability to take a first- second- and third-person perspective, can we begin to elucidate the neural processes responsible for one’s inimitable conscious experience. The current study examined differences in hemispheric laterality during a first-person perspective (1PP) and third-person perspective (3PP) taking task, using Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). Subjects were asked to take either the 1PP or 3PP in identifying the number of spheres in a virtual scene. During this task, single- pulse TMS was delivered to the motor cortex of both the left and right hemispheres of 10 healthy volunteers. Measures of TMS-induced motor-evoked potentials (MEP’s) of the contralateral abductor pollicus brevis (APB) were used as an indicator of lateralized cortical activation. The data suggest that the right hemisphere is an integral component for discriminating between 1PP and 3PP and that the link between the primary- representational “self” (1PP) and the meta- representational state of 3PP may lie within the LH