An Enquiry into Fully Lived Moments

Merged with duplicate record 10026.1/1295 on 15.02.2017 by CS (TIS)The thesis explores facets of human agency and fully lived moments in the Cobra group, the ideas of Henri Lefebvre, and the ideas of Victor Burgin and psychoanalysis. Connective elements, and their relevance or not, through different disciplines, are a central part of its thinking. To this end some connections are found, some speculative connections are tracked, and there are some ideas that don't connect, yet come close to doing so but which become valuable for the examination of productive tensions and excesses about the lived in a cross-disciplinary enquiry. To begin with, an original set of historical and thematic alliances is established, that includes Cobra artists and thinkers, and their links, among others, to the Surrealists, Gaston Bachelard, and Henri Lefebvre, who were contemporaries. It includes the relevance of a plurality of productive and collaborative tensions in Cobra practices that de-stabilise a traditional aesthetic reading. In the next chapter, an original reading of Lefebvre's radical romantic ideas, as well as his contacts with art groups, are examined. This includes the Dadaists, Surrealists, ex-Cobra member Constant, and the early Situationists. In combination and in unresolved ways, the Cobra Group's collaborative aesthetic and Henri Lefebvre's radical romanticism encompass particular facets of a realm of human agency and fully lived moments. In its enquiry for a more contemporary context in art theory the thesis finds scope for a cautious re-consideration of fully lived moments and lived time and for stretching its methodological complexity. Given the propensity of historical material theories to marginalise reflexive insights, and given an existing realm of Victor Burgin's ideas about Lefebvre, art theory, and psychoanalysis, his ideas are investigated and differentiated critically. This helps to highlight the importance of misalignments and problems of equivalence with ideas about fully lived moments. The chapter also highlights differences between: Burgin and Lefebvre; between Burgin's synthetic psychoanalytic realm and other psychoanalytic approaches; and it highlights the limited relevance of Lefebvre's notions of alterity. Other sets of near connections and potential fractures in human agency and dimensional aspects of the lived are explored in object relations and Freudian theory. This is not an art historical commentary about Cobra art. Its history focuses on a set of productive tensions that destabilise art historical and traditional aesthetic categorisations. However, Cobra practice is not reduced into an outside aesthetic realm, or a thinking vivacity either. Similarly, the thesis magnifies only a portion of Lefebvre's thinking. It presents an original interpretation of Lefebvre's work by putting together a range of ideas, connections and texts about his radical romanticism that highlight the lived or contexts outside of a traditional aesthetic. Similarly in the radical romantic strains of Lefebvre's work unresolveability highlights a particular set of creative and sociological connections, but also problems. This includes for example the relative strengths of bringing together poiesis (creativity) and praxis (social practice) that Lefebvre, to a certain extent, attempts to resolve as an aspect of social practice. Unresolveability explores its field in aesthetic, visual cultural or radical romantic terms, despite connections - in the everyday and cultural theory for example - as up against the impossible in terms of being resolved into an aesthetic synthesis or dimension. At its broadest, and for the second term, non-resolveability relates to the intrinsic limitations of equivalence across disciplines in the thesis. Paradoxically the thesis attempts to realise a field of the fully lived moment in thought and action, while also highlighting specific limits and nonresolveable problems of its reach. A cross-disciplinary approach examines the value of bringing together methodologies and specific fields from different directions. It examines productive configurations across disciplinary vectors of thought. Furthermore however its reach highlights notions of contradiction in the lived. It highlights notions of excess that cut across Lefebvre's radical romanticism, Cobra's aesthetic, and Burgin's psychical realms. The thesis attempts, and complicates, a theory of fully lived moments. For example, in Lefebvre's sociological perspectives and in the psychoanalytic, different registers of thought, value, and agency are highlighted. Given disparate registers, non-resolveability struggles against developing one methodology or field at the expense of others. This becomes a means, in exploratory ways, for tracking connections from disparate mapping processes. Furthermore, scope for the potential reinterpretation of specific concepts and contexts, for discursive and creative thinking across registers, are introduced. The thesis concludes that there is scope for alliances in unresolveable thematic connections between Cobra Art and Lefebvre where an interesting transitional field about the lived is found. It presents the importance and originality of a field of concepts, values and ideas about fully lived moments. Yet it also introduces some of the disparate and nonresolveable scope of its fractures in reflexive or art theoretical realms

The political economics of sovereign wealth fund investment

Submitted for the degree of Master of International Relations University of the Witwatersrand, November 2017With market instability becoming a major threat to the financial stability of states around the world, the sudden rise in the number and size of sovereign wealth fund investments around the world in the last decade is hardly surprising. Being a relatively new subject in the realm of international relations and international political economics, there is still much to be learned about the new alternative asset class and its place in modern society. One of the most contentious issues on the topic revolves around the evident and still possible effects of SWF investment on domestic and international political discourse, and simultaneously the role played by politics on SWF investments themselves. It is this relationship between the politics and the economics of SWF investment that this report seeks to determine, and by the conclusion, does so effectively. To do so, the report uses both quantitative and qualitative data to establish a link. The report begins by outlining a background to set the scene for the investigation, going on to outline a theoretical framework for the study using four sub-theories within the theory of International Political Economics which are assigned to each of the three cases based on their relevance and applicability. Next, the report details the intricacies of the main regulatory body of SWF investments, the Generally Accepted Principals and Practices (or Santiago Principals) in order to base the report in the context of its common function. Finally, the report applies the material to three case studies, selected for their relevance to the topic, those being the Social and Economic Stabilisation Fund and Pension Reserve Fund of Chile between 2006 and 2009, the China Investment Corporation and the Qatar Investment Authority. The result of the study indicates that there is, in fact, a considerable relationship between SWF investment and political discourse, both positive and negative which vary between cases. SWF investment can simultaneously benefit domestic politics, while also having the capability of resulting in economic protectionism and international distrust. Furthermore, the sovereign nature of SWF investment make them extremely difficult to regulate, allowing for some funds to become tools for states to pursue political agendas throughout the world. All in all, the report successfully identified the link between SWF investment and political discourse, proving the original hypothesis and adding to the growing foundation of academic knowledge on the subject of sovereign wealth fund investment.XL201

Fitzgerald\u27s Use of the Four Elements in The Great Gatsby

A great deal has been written about the conscientious effort that went into the design of F. Scott Fitzgerald\u27s popular novel, The Great Gatsby, with its various allusions and numerous symbols. A careful reading of this novel will unveil the author\u27s preoccupation with numerous metaphysical images, particularly the four elements--air, earth, water, and fire--which are considered to be the essential components of all matter. Fitzgerald uses the four elements in The Great Gatsby to coordinate mood and physical settings, to give dimension to the settings, and to bring characters into sharper focus. The novel employs four settings, each one directly corresponding to a particular element: East Egg--air, the valley of ashes--earth, West Egg--water, and New York City--fire. Most of the characters in the novel are directly related to the symbolic qualities of three of the elements, air, earth, and water. Characters metaphorically defined by the elements include Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker, and George Wilson who are characterized through air imagery, Tom Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson who are associated with earth, and Jay Gatsby who is presented in water imagery. Fire serves primarily as a force that metaphorically burns away obscurities and reveals the true motives and personalities of each character. Even Nick Carraway, the narrator of the novel, who seems to have a balance of the elements and gets along equally well with all the characters, is forced to re-evaluate the people in the heat of the Plaza Hotel showdown in New York City between Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby. Nick remains objective throughout the novel until the last chapter when he becomes impressed by Gatsby\u27s intense faith, loyalty, and determination toward his dream of reliving the past. Nick finds that Gatsby indeed is an admirable person in comparison to the reckless society of the East represented by Tom and Daisy Buchanan and Jordan Baker. The valley of ashes, symbolic of the moral wasteland of the East and representative of the element earth, becomes the tragic backdrop of The Great Gatsby. Earth triumphs in the metaphorical dimensions of the elemental structure of the story. It is within this setting that the wealthy Buchanans and Jordan Baker most obviously display their indifference to human morality, leaving three innocent victims in the path of their destruction. Earth\u27s most representative character, Tom Buchanan, emerges relatively unscathed: his selfishness and insensitivity make it possible for him to accept the loss of Myrtle Wilson without lasting pain

Fitzgerald\u27s Use of the Four Elements in The Great Gatsby

A great deal has been written about the conscientious effort that went into the design of F. Scott Fitzgerald\u27s popular novel, The Great Gatsby, with its various allusions and numerous symbols. A careful reading of this novel will unveil the author\u27s preoccupation with numerous metaphysical images, particularly the four elements--air, earth, water, and fire--which are considered to be the essential components of all matter. Fitzgerald uses the four elements in The Great Gatsby to coordinate mood and physical settings, to give dimension to the settings, and to bring characters into sharper focus. The novel employs four settings, each one directly corresponding to a particular element: East Egg--air, the valley of ashes--earth, West Egg--water, and New York City--fire. Most of the characters in the novel are directly related to the symbolic qualities of three of the elements, air, earth, and water. Characters metaphorically defined by the elements include Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker, and George Wilson who are characterized through air imagery, Tom Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson who are associated with earth, and Jay Gatsby who is presented in water imagery. Fire serves primarily as a force that metaphorically burns away obscurities and reveals the true motives and personalities of each character. Even Nick Carraway, the narrator of the novel, who seems to have a balance of the elements and gets along equally well with all the characters, is forced to re-evaluate the people in the heat of the Plaza Hotel showdown in New York City between Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby. Nick remains objective throughout the novel until the last chapter when he becomes impressed by Gatsby\u27s intense faith, loyalty, and determination toward his dream of reliving the past. Nick finds that Gatsby indeed is an admirable person in comparison to the reckless society of the East represented by Tom and Daisy Buchanan and Jordan Baker. The valley of ashes, symbolic of the moral wasteland of the East and representative of the element earth, becomes the tragic backdrop of The Great Gatsby. Earth triumphs in the metaphorical dimensions of the elemental structure of the story. It is within this setting that the wealthy Buchanans and Jordan Baker most obviously display their indifference to human morality, leaving three innocent victims in the path of their destruction. Earth\u27s most representative character, Tom Buchanan, emerges relatively unscathed: his selfishness and insensitivity make it possible for him to accept the loss of Myrtle Wilson without lasting pain

Digitizing observations from the Met Office Daily Weather Reports for 1900–1910 using citizen scientist volunteers

We describe the digitization of 1.8 million sub‐daily and daily weather observations which were recorded in the UK Met Office Daily Weather Reports during the 1900–1910 period. The data were rescued from scanned images of the original documents by 2,148 volunteer citizen scientists using the weatherrescue.org website. The rescued observations include dry and wet bulb temperatures, daily maximum and minimum temperatures, daily rainfall amounts and sub‐daily sea‐level pressure from 72 different locations across western Europe. These observations will be used to fill gaps in existing pressure, temperature and rainfall records and are one of the largest recoveries of weather data by citizen scientists. The value of these additional observations is highlighted by comparing the pressure observations to the Twentieth Century Reanalysis version 3 ensemble for some specific case studies

Developments in the scientific and clinical understanding of autoinflammatory disorders

The autoinflammatory diseases, also known as periodic fever syndromes, are disorders of innate immunity which can be inherited or acquired and which cause recurrent, self-limiting, seemingly spontaneous episodes of systemic inflammation and fever in the absence of autoantibody production or infection. There has been much recent progress in elucidating their aetiologies and treatment. With the exception of familial Mediterranean fever, which is common in certain populations, autoinflammatory diseases are mostly rare but should not be overlooked in the differential diagnosis of recurrent fevers since DNA diagnosis and effective therapies are available for many of them

Standardising Care and Treatment of Transthyretin Amyloid Cardiomyopathy

Transthyretin cardiac amyloidosis (ATTR-CA) has been traditionally considered a rare and inexorably fatal condition. ATTR-CA now is an increasingly recognised cause of heart failure and mortality worldwide with effective pharmacological treatments. Advances in non-invasive diagnosis, coupled with the development of effective treatments, have transformed the diagnosis of ATTR-CA, which is now possible without recourse to endomyocardial biopsy in around 70% of cases. Many patients are now diagnosed at an earlier stage. Echocardiography and cardiac magnetic resonance have enabled identification of patients with possible ATTR-CA and more accurate prognostic stratification. Therapies able to slow or halt ATTR-CA progression and increase survival are now available and there is also evidence that patients may benefit from specific conventional heart failure medications. A wide horizon of possibilities is unfolding and awaits discovery

Understanding the design variables that contribute to the response of a prosthetic foot: Part II – Rig Validation

In this paper the validation of a rig capable of replicating the dynamic response of an energy storing and returning composite prosthetic foot during amputee running is considered. It is shown that the rig can effectively replicate the running action of an amputee runner and return the same ground contact time. It has also been shown that if a small input force is applied in a timed and sympathetic manner to the prosthetic spring-mass system the amplitude of oscillation increases which agrees with results of previous research. The rig will allow the design variables that contribute to the response of a prosthetic foot during running to be understood and optimised to improve the foot’s performance

Understanding the design variables that contribute to the response of a prosthetic foot: Part I –Rig Design

In this paper the design of a rig capable of replicating the dynamic response of an energy storing and returning composite prosthetic foot during amputee running is considered. It has been assumed that the amputee/prosthesis system can be modelled as a spring/mass system. Therefore the rig has been designed to allow the applied mass, input force frequency and foot contact point of various feet designs to be varied to test this assumption. The rig will allow the design variables that contribute to the response of a prosthetic foot during running to be understood and optimised to improve the foot’s performance

CO2, the greenhouse effect and global warming: from the pioneering work of Arrhenius and Callendar to today's Earth System Models

Climate warming during the course of the twenty-first century is projected to be between 1.0 and 3.7 °C depending on future greenhouse gas emissions, based on the ensemble-mean results of state-of-the-art Earth System Models (ESMs). Just how reliable are these projections, given the complexity of the climate system? The early history of climate research provides insight into the understanding and science needed to answer this question. We examine the mathematical quantifications of planetary energy budget developed by Svante Arrhenius (1859–1927) and Guy Stewart Callendar (1898–1964) and construct an empirical approximation of the latter, which we show to be successful at retrospectively predicting global warming over the course of the twentieth century. This approximation is then used to calculate warming in response to increasing atmospheric greenhouse gases during the twenty-first century, projecting a temperature increase at the lower bound of results generated by an ensemble of ESMs (as presented in the latest assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). This result can be interpreted as follows. The climate system is conceptually complex but has at its heart the physical laws of radiative transfer. This basic, or “core” physics is relatively straightforward to compute mathematically, as exemplified by Callendar's calculations, leading to quantitatively robust projections of baseline warming. The ESMs include not only the physical core but also climate feedbacks that introduce uncertainty into the projections in terms of magnitude, but not sign: positive (amplification of warming). As such, the projections of end-of-century global warming by ESMs are fundamentally trustworthy: quantitatively robust baseline warming based on the well-understood physics of radiative transfer, with extra warming due to climate feedbacks. These projections thus provide a compelling case that global climate will continue to undergo significant warming in response to ongoing emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere