Vision and Violence in Virginia Woolf’s The Waves

Virginia Woolf describes her artistic goal in The Waves as an attempt to create “an abstract mystical eyeless book.” Yet, in creating her eyeless book, one that eschews a single narrative perspective, Woolf amasses abundant visual details. For each of her six characters, visual images mark significant moments of being. In fact, Woolf emphasizes the characters’ capacity for sight as a vulnerability that allows them to be violated and wounded over and over. This article analyzes connections between visual imagery and themes of violence in the novel to demonstrate how they cohere into an extended metaphor for the ways in which acts of looking can elicit powerful emotions that threaten to fragment individual identity in painful ways. While Woolf’s novel has received critical commentary that focuses on the role of vision in the narrative and critics have also noted how violence in the text supports other themes, the explicit relationship between sight and violence has not yet been fully explored. A close examination of the visual imagery in key scenes of the novel demonstrates how Woolf engages the reader to participate in the characters’ deepening sense of fragmentation as they are repeatedly assaulted by experience, as the eyes themselves become symbols of the twin dynamics of desire and destruction

Analysis of Energy Supply and Usage in the Iowa Economy

This report addresses the needs of state policymakers to understand the implications to the state’s economy from current levels of energy supply imports. Historical energy consumption patterns for the state and the role of energy in the performance of the Iowa economy are reviewed using current data. Economic modeling techniques are then used to analyze the linkages of these energy sectors, forward and backwards, with the rest of the economy. Information on the importance of energy to various economic activities and the share of energy expenditure that goes to in-state vs. out-of-state sources, including the energy distribution functions, is also provided. The objective of this report is to review the information on the quantities of energy consumed and dollars spent in Iowa and evaluate the share of these energy dollars that are leaving the state.

Whole genome sequencing and microsatellite analysis of the Plasmodium falciparum E5 NF54 strain show that the var, rifin and stevor gene families follow Mendelian inheritance

Background: Plasmodium falciparum exhibits a high degree of inter-isolate genetic diversity in its variant surface antigen (VSA) families: P. falciparum erythrocyte membrane protein 1, repetitive interspersed family (RIFIN) and subtelomeric variable open reading frame (STEVOR). The role of recombination for the generation of this diversity is a subject of ongoing research. Here the genome of E5, a sibling of the 3D7 genome strain is presented. Short and long read whole genome sequencing (WGS) techniques (Ilumina, Pacific Bioscience) and a set of 84 microsatellites (MS) were employed to characterize the 3D7 and non-3D7 parts of the E5 genome. This is the first time that VSA genes in sibling parasites were analysed with long read sequencing technology. Results: Of the 5733 E5 genes only 278 genes, mostly var and rifin/stevor genes, had no orthologues in the 3D7 genome. WGS and MS analysis revealed that chromosomal crossovers occurred at a rate of 0–3 per chromosome. var, stevor and rifin genes were inherited within the respective non-3D7 or 3D7 chromosomal context. 54 of the 84 MS PCR fragments correctly identified the respective MS as 3D7- or non-3D7 and this correlated with var and rifin/stevor gene inheritance in the adjacent chromosomal regions. E5 had 61 var and 189 rifin/stevor genes. One large non-chromosomal recombination event resulted in a new var gene on chromosome 14. The remainder of the E5 3D7-type subtelomeric and central regions were identical to 3D7. Conclusions: The data show that the rifin/stevor and var gene families represent the most diverse compartments of the P. falciparum genome but that the majority of var genes are inherited without alterations within their respective parental chromosomal context. Furthermore, MS genotyping with 54 MS can successfully distinguish between two sibling progeny of a natural P. falciparum cross and thus can be used to investigate identity by descent in field isolates

On Extended Electroweak Symmetries

We discuss extensions of the Standard Model through extending the electroweak gauge symmetry. An extended electroweak symmetry requires a list of extra fermionic and scalar states. The former is necessary to maintain cancellation of gauge anomalies, and largely fixed by the symmetry embedding itself. The latter is usually considered quite arbitrary, so long as a vacuum structure admitting the symmetry breaking is allowed. Anomaly cancellation may be used to link the three families of quarks and leptons together, given a perspective on flavor physics. It is illustrated lately that the kind of models may also have the so-called little Higgs mechanism incorporated. This more or less fixes the scalar sector and take care of the hierarchy problem, making such models of extended electroweak symmetries quite appealing candidates as TeV scale effective field theories.Comment: 1+8 pages of latex with ws-procs9x6.cls; talk presented at Coral Gables Conference 200

A Preliminary Investigation of School District Expenditures with Respect to School District Size in Iowa

This is a preliminary investigation into the relationships between public school district size and patterns in school district expenditures and revenues in Iowa.  The report uses Internet-accessible revenue and expenditure data to examine the relative importance of primary education to the Iowa’s budget and to local government budgets.  Data derived from the Certified Annual Report that each public school district files with the Iowa Department of Education are used to examine patterns of revenues and expenditures for all Iowa public school districts relative to school district sizes and state averages.  The analysis finds a reciprocal relationship between total district expenditures per student and district size.  Economy of scale is a substantial factor as district enrollments decline below 750 students.

Some Novel Contributions to Radiative B Decay in Supersymmetry without R-parity

We present a systematic analysis at the leading log order of the influence of combination of bilinear and trilinear R-parity violating couplings on the decay b-->s gamma. Such contributions have never been explored in the context of this decay. We show that influence of charged-slepton-Higgs mixing mediated loops can dominate the SM and MSSM contributions and hence can provide strong bounds on the combination of bilinear-trilinear R-parity violating couplings. Such contributions are also enhanced by large tan beta. With substantially extended basis of operators (28 operators), we provide illustrative analytical formulae of the major contributions to complement our complete numerical results which demonstrate the importance of QCD running effects.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Preliminary Market and Cost Analysis of a Five-Station Hemodialysis Facility in Marengo, Iowa

This report was commissioned by the Marengo Memorial Hospital to evaluate the market potential for a new kidney dialysis facility. Marengo Memorial Hospital is a rural hospital located in Marengo, a town of 2,535 people in north central Iowa County, Iowa (see the star in Map 1). In 2001, the hospital reported a capacity of 25 acute-care beds, 228 admissions, 8,485 inpatient admission days, and 8,750 outpatient visits. Marengo Memorial Hospital intends to add space in order to expand its wellness, health maintenance, and community programs. One of the options for use of this added space is a fivestation hemodialysis facility. Our primary goal is to determine whether there is enough current and anticipated demand for in-center hemodialysis services within the immediate area and surrounding region to support such a facility. Our secondary aim is to determine the utilization levels at which a five-station hemodialysis facility's operations can be self-financed. For the purposes of this report, it is assumed that suitable facility space will be included in hospital expansion, regardless of whether the space is utilized for dialysis operations. This report focuses on the potential market for and operational costs and revenues associated with the proposed dialysis facility.

Investigation to develop a process for production of oxide fibers by melt draw technique Final report

Process for production of oxide fibers by melt draw techniqu

Force chain splitting in granular materials: a mechanism for large scale pseudo-elastic behaviour

We investigate both numerically and analytically the effect of strong disorder on the large scale properties of the hyperbolic equations for stresses proposed in \protect\cite{bcc,wcc}. The physical mechanism that we model is the local splitting of the force chains (the characteristics of the hyperbolic equation) by packing defects. In analogy with the theory of light diffusion in a turbid medium, we propose a Boltzmann-like equation to describe these processes. We show that, for isotropic packings, the resulting large scale effective equations for the stresses have exactly the same structure as those of an elastic body, despite the fact that no displacement field needs to be introduced at all. Correspondingly, the response function evolves from a two peak structure at short scales to a broad hump at large scales. We find, however, that the Poisson ratio is anomalously large and incompatible with classical elasticity theory that requires the reference state to be thermodynamically stable.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, An incorrect definition of the Poisson ratio in dimensions not equal to 3 was amended. The conclusions are unchange