Endangered bodies: Woman and nature in the contemporary British novel by women writers

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Criticism that involves the linkage of the terms ‘environment’ and ‘literature’, or ‘ecocriticism’, has focused largely on texts such as nature writing or on fiction that is set in rural or wilderness settings. This project attempts to widen the scope of ecocriticism by analysing the contemporary British novel, in which nature conceived in such stereotypical ways is largely absent. However, in my analysis of the fifteen texts selected here, I demonstrate that British women writers employ new discursive constructions of nature in order to contest deterministic formulations that subjugate both women and nature. My focus on female textual bodies enables me to explore representations of the fluid interfaces of nature and culture. In my analysis of novels from an environmental standpoint, `environment' is reconceived to refer to `where we live, work, and play' and may include not only the countryside and urban nature, but also the female body itself. Thus, the nature of my title is an inclusive term that includes contemporary discourses of nature employed by the sciences of biomedicine, genetics and technology. This project examines the ecofeminist premise that discourses of mastery not only affect subjugated others such as women, animals and others, but also influence the treatment of the natural environment. Analysing novels that employ forms of embodiment that foreground extreme bodily conditions such as pregnancy, monstrosity and death, I employ the theoretical constructs of Mikhail Bakhtin (the grotesque body, carnivalisation and dialogism) and Julia Kristeva's notion of abjection as tools of analysis to provide a new conception of ecological bodies. Novelists such as Jeanette Winterson, Fay Weldon, Penelope Lively, Zadie Smith, Margaret Drabble, Kathy Lette and Eva Figes provide a wide range of viewpoints from which to gather evidence of the insistence of the recurring trope of the endangered body within the troubled landscape of contemporary Britain

The Rose of Love

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/6137/thumbnail.jp

Phytoplankton Growth Rates in the Ross Sea, Antarctica

The Ross Sea is a highly productive region of the Southern Ocean characterized by spatially variable distribution of phytoplankton, primarily Phaeocystis antarctica, but phytoplankton growth rates in the region have not been thoroughly investigated. Variability in growth rates was investigated from January to February 2012 on a cruise to the Ross Sea using two methods: 14C-isotopic tracer incubations and dilution experiments. Because all methods of measuring growth rates may not be appropriate in all systems due to errors inherent to each method, I assessed and compared the two methods for possible sources of error by examining the effect of extended incubations on measured growth rates in 14C-incubations, quantifying phytoplankton growth and grazing mortality rates through dilution experiments, and analyzing the effect of irradiance in incubations on carbon:chlorophyll ratios in dilution experiments. I found that dilution experiments yielded variable growth rates based on chlorophyll and cell abundance; the mean growth rate based on chlorophyll was 0.11 d-1 while mean growth rate based on abundance was 0.12 d-1. Chlorophyll-based growth rates may be inaccurate due to carbon:chlorophyll ratios of phytoplankton changing during incubations. This unbalanced growth is likely due to variable mixed layer depth and subsequent variability in light history of phytoplankton. Grazing mortality rates were non-significant in 7 of the 11 dilution experiments conducted and significant mortality rates were low with a mean mortality rate of 0.09 d-1, most likely because of low temperatures rather than the presence of P. antarctica. Growth rates measured in 14C-incubations did not change in extended incubations, indicating that loss of fixed 14C through grazing and respiration was not a major source of error. Growth rates were below those predicted based on temperature alone (p\u3c0.001), and mean growth rate in 14C-incubations was 0.14 d-1. Structural equation modeling indicated that growth rates in 14C-incubations did not strongly vary with mixed layer depth, but were significantly affected by low iron concentrations, most likely due to the seasonal depletion of iron. As grazing is low and physical conditions vary spatially, dilution experiments may not be an appropriate measure of growth rate in the Ross Sea, but 14C-incubations yield relatively low growth rates that are significantly affected by low iron concentrations in the region.

Receiver position and acceptance of noise, speech understanding, and sound quality ratings

The effect of receiver position in a hearing aid on acceptance of background noise, speech intelligibility, sound quality judgments, and listener preference was measured in adults with normal to mild sloping to moderate to severe sensorineural hearing loss. Participants were fit with open-fit behind-the-ear (BTE) and receiver-in-the-ear (RITE) hearing aids. After a 3-week trial with each device, acceptance of noise levels, speech understanding in quiet and in noise, and sound quality ratings were conducted. At the conclusion of the study, listener preference between the devices was evaluated. Results revealed that receiver position did not significantly affect acceptance of background noise, speech understanding in quiet or in noise, sound quality ratings, or listener preference, indicating that no difference in objective or subjective benefit was observed based on the position of the receiver in a BTE hearing aid

Automated documentation generator for advanced protein crystal growth

The System Management and Production Laboratory at the Research Institute, the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), was tasked by the Microgravity Experiment Projects (MEP) Office of the Payload Projects Office (PPO) at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) to conduct research in the current methods of written documentation control and retrieval. The goals of this research were to determine the logical interrelationships within selected NASA documentation, and to expand on a previously developed prototype system to deliver a distributable, electronic knowledge-based system. This computer application would then be used to provide a paperless interface between the appropriate parties for the required NASA document

A postsynaptic PI3K-cII dependent signaling controller for presynaptic homeostatic plasticity.

Presynaptic homeostatic plasticity stabilizes information transfer at synaptic connections in organisms ranging from insect to human. By analogy with principles of engineering and control theory, the molecular implementation of PHP is thought to require postsynaptic signaling modules that encode homeostatic sensors, a set point, and a controller that regulates transsynaptic negative feedback. The molecular basis for these postsynaptic, homeostatic signaling elements remains unknown. Here, an electrophysiology-based screen of the Drosophila kinome and phosphatome defines a postsynaptic signaling platform that includes a required function for PI3K-cII, PI3K-cIII and the small GTPase Rab11 during the rapid and sustained expression of PHP. We present evidence that PI3K-cII localizes to Golgi-derived, clathrin-positive vesicles and is necessary to generate an endosomal pool of PI(3)P that recruits Rab11 to recycling endosomal membranes. A morphologically distinct subdivision of this platform concentrates postsynaptically where we propose it functions as a homeostatic controller for retrograde, trans-synaptic signaling