Reformed Men: Alternative Masculinities in Experimental American Literature

Gender is an integral aspect to one’s lived experience; however, the collective understanding of gender is constantly being redefined. Consequently, the expectations attached to a particular gender identity are also being questioned. Current gender discourse calls attention to the fluidity of gender and experiences which diverge from traditional representations of gender. This thesis discusses works of contemporary experimental American literature from the perspective of masculinity studies. As a whole, masculinity studies seeks to address issues related to traditional male depictions in literature. This thesis aims to show how authors utilize traditional and experimental narrative elements to present alternatives to prescribed masculine identities. The novels discussed are as follows: The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (2007), Invisible Monsters Remix (2012) by Chuck Palahniuk, and Brief Interviews With Hideous Men (1999) by David Foster Wallace. Though all of these novels present bold--sometimes disturbing--depictions of men and might even appear to put them on a pedestal, their work does not celebrate them. In presenting these types of men, the authors work to address confining perspectives of prescribed masculinity. The men of these novels do not need to act a certain way or possess certain characteristics to be considered a man. They often undergo experiences which challenge their--and the readers’--perception of social roles. Furthermore, the use of experimental elements adds to the authors’ ability to present alternative masculinities. By toying with the conventions of the novel, they are able to create a narrative space where social norms are challenged and a space where different ways of being can exist

Solution of a practical Vehicle Routing Problem for monitoring Water Distribution Networks

In this work, we introduce a generalisation of the Vehicle Routing Problem for a specific application in the monitoring of a Water Distribution Network (WDN). In this problem, multiple technicians must visit a sequence of nodes in the WDN and perform a series of tests to check the quality of water. Some special nodes (i.e., wells) require technicians to first collect a key from a key centre. The key must then be returned to the same key centre after the test has been performed, thus introducing precedence constraints and multiple visits in the routes. To solve the problem, a Mixed Integer Linear Programming model and an Iterated Local Search have been implemented. The efficiency of the proposed methods is demonstrated by means of extensive computational tests on randomly created and real-world instances

Radu–Miheţ Method for the Existence, Uniqueness, and Approximation of the ψ-Hilfer Fractional Equations by Matrix-Valued Fuzzy Controllers

We apply the Radu–Miheţ method derived from an alternative fixed-point theorem with a class of matrix-valued fuzzy controllers to approximate a fractional Volterra integro-differential equation with the ψ-Hilfer fractional derivative in matrix-valued fuzzy k-normed spaces to obtain an approximation for this type of fractional equation.The authors are grateful to the Basque Government by the support of this work through Grant IT1207-19

Development of a Desktop Freehand 3-D Surface Reconstruction System

This paper discusses the development of a freehand 3-D surface reconstruction system. The system was constructed by making use of readily available off-the-shelf components, namely a laser line emitter and a webcam. The 3-D laser scanner system allows the user to hand sweep the laser line across the object to be scanned. The 3-D surface information of the object is captured as follows. A series of digital images ofthe laser line, generated by the intersection of the laser plane, the surface of the object and the background planar object were captured and stored in a PC. The points on the laser line were extracted. The 2D laser points that were found on the surface of the planar object were projected onto the 3-D space using a pinhole camera model. The laser plane was calibrated. Using the 2-D laser points found on the surface of the 3-D object, a cloud of 3-D points which represent the surface of the object being scanned was generated by triangulation. For the laser plane calibration two different methods were implemented. Their performance were compared

A hybrid energy-efficient routing protocol for wireless sensor networks

The usage and deployment of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) is rapidly increasing in many different monitoring and control applications. In the majority of these applications, energy is a key factor in sensor networks since the sensor nodes are battery powered and hence have limited resources of energy. In this context, choosing a proper energy-efficient routing technique can increase the network life time. In this paper, a new Hybrid Energy-Efficient (HEE) routing protocol is proposed. HEE uses Direct Transmission (DT) and Minimum Energy Transmission (MTE) which are two of the simplest methods in terms of computational complexity. However the design of routing techniques is highly dependent on the application and the performance may vary based on environmental parameters. The novel proposed method is applicable for different networks regardless of the size and distances between the nodes and also with different parameters such as number of nodes and message length. Simulation results show how HEE performs more efficiently in terms of energy consumption when comparing to DT and MTE.- (undefined

On the Topology Induced by C*-Algebra-Valued Fuzzy Metric Spaces

We define the notion of C * -algebra-valued fuzzy metric spaces and we study the topology induced by these spaces.The authors are grateful to the Basque Government by the support, of this work through Grant IT1207-19

Detecting Invasive Fungal Disease in Surgical Patients: Utility of the (1 3)- b-d-Glucan Assay

Background: The specificity and sensitivity of the (1 3)-b-d-glucan (BDG) assay in surgical patients needs further investigation. We hypothesized that the BDG assay would have lower sensitivity/specificity compared with that of medical patients. Methods: We reviewed patients who had undergone laparotomy, gastrectomy, hepatectomy, or colectomy and had a BDG assay post-operatively. Results: A total of 71 patients met study criteria. There were 29 (40.8%) who had proven/probable invasive fungal infection. Sensitivity for BDG level ‡80 diagnosed within one week of the assay draw was 77.3% (95% confidence interval [CI], 54.6–92.2%), and specificity was 44.9% (95% CI, 30.7–59.8). The positive predictive value was 38.6% (95% CI, 31.0–46.9%), and negative predictive value was 82.5% (95% CI, 65.7–91.0%). A BDG assay result of 149 pg/mL had a classification rate of 63.4%. Therefore, a BDG assay result ‡150 pg/mL has a sensitivity of 78.6% and a specificity of 41.4%. Conclusion: A BDG assay can be useful for ruling out invasive fungemia in post-operative patients