Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Adventures and adventures'

This thesis examines the new theatrical form of cyberformance (live performance by remote players using internet technologies) and contextualises it within the broader fields of networked performance, digital performance and theatre. Poststructuralist theories that contest the binary distinction between reality and representation provide the analytical foundation for the thesis. A critical reflexive methodological approach is undertaken in order to highlight three themes. First, the essential qualities and criteria of cyberformance are identified, and illustrated with examples from the early 1990s to the present day. Second, two cyberformance groups – the Plaintext Players and Avatar Body Collision – and UpStage, a purpose-built application for cyberformance, are examined in more detailed case studies. Third, the specifics of the cyberformance audience are explored and commonalities are identified between theatre and online culture. In conclusion, this thesis suggests that theatre and the internet have much to offer each other in this current global state of transition, and that cyberformance offers one means by which to facilitate the incorporation of new technologies into our lives.

This thesis examines the new theatrical form of cyberformance (live performance by remote players using internet technologies) and contextualises it within the broader fields of networked performance, digital performance and theatre. Poststructuralist theories that contest the binary distinction between reality and representation provide the analytical foundation for the thesis. A critical reflexive methodological approach is undertaken in order to highlight three themes. First, the essential qualities and criteria of cyberformance are identified, and illustrated with examples from the early 1990s to the present day. Second, two cyberformance groups – the Plaintext Players and Avatar Body Collision – and UpStage, a purpose-built application for cyberformance, are examined in more detailed case studies. Third, the specifics of the cyberformance audience are explored and commonalities are identified between theatre and online culture. In conclusion, this thesis suggests that theatre and the internet have much to offer each other in this current global state of transition, and that cyberformance offers one means by which to facilitate the incorporation of new technologies into our lives.

The work presented in this thesis is divided into three distinct chapters covering the chemistry high-nuclearity palladium cages, the many structures of Najera's catalyst compounds and the crystal structures of molecular tweezers and their compounds. The o-palladated, chloro-bridged dimers [Pd2-phenylpyridine(-H) -u-Cl]2 and [pdN,N-dimethylbenzylamine(-H)-Cl]2 react with cyanuric acid in the presence of base to afford closed, chiral cage-molecules in which 12 organo-Pd(11) centres, located in pairs at the vertices of an octohedron, are linked by four tetrahedally arranged cyanurator(3-) ligands.

A field in bloom: photoredox catalysis has allowed chemists access to highly reactive intermediates via the photo-mediated excitation of transition metal complexes and organic dyes for the mild generation of free radicals. These complexes and dyes are designed based on Nature’s blueprints of light-harvesting biomolecules that transform solar energy (photons) into chemical energy during photosynthesis. Light-mediated chemical activation is regarded as one of the most sustainable forms of chemical activation being that the energy provided by the sun is considered renewable and largely underutilized and presents an attractive avenue for research and development of new transformations that are mild, efficient, and waste-limiting in organic synthesis. Radical chemistry and photochemistry are united in their inherent ability to undergo single (or photoinduced) electron transfers by one-electron reaction modes. Combining these unique fields, photoredox catalysis has emerged as a mild and efficient alternative to classic alkyl radical generation using hazardous initiators and organostannanes. Photoredox catalysis has been dominated by ruthenium- and iridium-based polypyridyl complexes. These complexes are limited by their inherent redox potentials, restricting their reactivity towards relatively activated bonds. Nonactivated bromoalkanes and arenes are considered challenging substrates to engage using redox chemistry and typically only accessible in the realm of organostannane chemistry. Described herein are the efforts towards the discovery of free radical based organic transformations derived from nonactivated bromoalkanes and arenes mediated by photochemical excitation of polynuclear gold(I) complexes as photoredox catalysts. This work represents some of the first uses of a photoredox catalyst in the reduction of substrates having such high reduction potentials and offers a practical and useful alternative to classic radical reactions mediated by initiators (peroxides, persulfates, and azo compounds) and toxic organostannanes (Bu3SnH). Using gold based photoredox catalysts, the research conducted has provided many methodological advancements for the mild and efficient formation of carbon-carbon bonds using nonactivated bromoalkanes and a large collection of radical acceptors. Establishing the use of these photoexcited polynuclear gold(I) complexes in the context of classic radical reactions in organic synthesis was important for their validation as useful photocatalysts. First, the Ueno-Stork cyclization of nonactivated bromoalkanes was used to demonstrate the powerful reducing capabilities of the excited-state gold(I) complexes. Next, a photo-mediated variant of the Appel reaction was described, where the transformation of an alcohol to a bromoalkane was achieved using carbontetrabromide and N,N-dimethylformamide through the intermediacy of a Vilsmeier-Haack reagent. In combination with the hydrodebromination chemistry developed with photoexcited polynuclear gold(I) complexes, a photo-mediated one-pot formal deoxygenation reaction of alcohols was described; a useful alternative to the organostannane mediated Barton-McCombie deoxygenation reaction. Finally, in the field of medicinal chemistry, the functionalization of heteroarenes is of high interest for the discovery of drug candidates and bioactive molecules. In this respect, one of the most useful reactions for the functionalization of heteroarenes by alkyl radicals is the Minisci reaction using silver salts, carboxylic acids, and persulfates. Detailed are the efforts for the development of a photo-mediated redox-neutral improvement of the Minisci reaction, needing only gold(I) photocatalyst and nonactivated bromoalkane in the presence of heteroarenes. Overall, the work described in this thesis represents the push for mild and efficient alternatives to the relatively harsh conditions and/or toxic reagents and byproducts associated with classic radical chemistry. These studies demonstrate the ability to control highly reactive alkyl radical intermediates with the goal of their broader application in synthetic organic chemistry. The use of photoexcited polynuclear gold(I) complexes as potent reductants compared to ruthenium- and iridium-based polypyridyl complexes is illustrated through the genesis of highly reactive alkyl radicals from nonactivated bromoalkanes.

A half-hour adult animated pilot partially based on eccentric inventor Nikola Tesla. Logline: Brilliant engineering student Dot must keep her boss, famed eccentric inventor Nikola Tesla, out of trouble as his unhinged contraptions wreak havoc on 1920s New York City while he battles his longtime rival, Thomas Edison.

My work articulates experiences of intimacy and porosity with regard to domestic space. I think of these paintings as fields of interrelatedness which work to dismantle the perceived thresholds between things. The following text brings together the research of my studio practice and a survey of artists, writers, and filmmakers who have charted related spaces of the ordinary, domestic, and porous.

THE ADVENTURES OF JAMES TULLY is a novel in stories depicting James Tully's experience growing up in the light of his mother's mental illness and the discovery that his family has secrets important to his understanding of himself. After trying to negotiate these difficulties in his working class home town of Clinton, Massachusetts, he embarks on a search for the place where he really belongs. THE ADVENTURES OF JAMES TULLY spans the protagonist’s life from the age of ten through the period following his graduation from college at twenty-one. The book is divided into three sections. As is typical in the bildungsroman form, the protagonist is a young man who forsakes his home in the search for experience and spiritual enlightenment. Ultimately, James builds a new sense of self as he moves from seeing his world as horrible and frightening to finding in it the promise of beauty.

The word problem of a finitely generated group is commonly defined to be a formal language over a finite generating set. The class of finite groups has been characterised as the class of finitely generated groups that have word problem decidable by a finite state automaton. We give a natural generalisation of the notion of word problem from finitely generated groups to finitely generated semigroups by considering relations of strings. We characterise the class of finite semigroups by the class of finitely generated semigroups whose word problem is decidable by finite state automata. We then examine the class of semigroups with word problem decidable by asynchronous two tape finite state automata. Algebraic properties of semigroups in this class are considered, towards an algebraic characterisation. We take the next natural step to further extend the classes of semigroups under consideration to semigroups that have word problem decidable by a finite collection of asynchronous automata working independently. A central tool used in the derivation of structural results are so-called iteration lemmas. We define a hierarchy of the considered classes of semigroups and connect our original results with previous research.

These days, fact-checking is a fashionable term in the worlds of both politics and the media. On broadcast news, tickers run below the speeches of politicians, with claims annotated in real-time and occasionally labeled as false. In newspapers like the Washington Post and online information hubs like Politifact.com, writers invoke the term to flag reporting that aims to correct or clarify the public record. At times, "fact-checking" efforts are themselves called out for partisan bias or personal gain. The term is now practically mainstream, used in everyday conversation to indicate disbelief. ("I'm going to have to fact-check you," CNN anchor Jake Tapper said to former Baltimore mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake in August 2016, expressing surprise that she was the mother of a 12-year-old.) Given the proliferating parties of interest that now claim to be engaged in some sort of fact-checking endeavor--from policy think tanks to Facebook--it's no wonder that a term originally reserved for the pursuit of journalistic accuracy now suffers from muddied public understanding. This study focuses on fact-checking in the context of print magazines: the media genre that innovated a formal version of the practice nearly a century ago. Magazine fact-checking, unlike the "fact-checking" tickers of broadcast news and newspaper postmortems, focuses not on setting the record straight after the fact, but rather on getting the story right before it goes to print. If a magazine fact-checker does her work well, she'll remain invisible to the reader. And that's because the published story, after her fact-checking, will afford the reader an experience uninterrupted by questionable logic, unreliable sources, or suspect data. Magazine fact-checkers aim for this level of perfection by employing a rigorous process that goes far beyond the verification of names, dates, and numerical figures. To illustrate this process, and explain my personal investment in this craft, I share my own experience working as the head of a city magazine's fact-checking department. To gain perspective on magazine fact-checking as practiced elsewhere in the nation, I interview other fact-checkers, writers, and academics. I also draw on case studies, media history, and personal anecdotes to examine some of the fundamental questions that inform the practice. (Among them: what is a fact? When does information become true? And what are the limits of a fact-checker's pursuit of truth?) In the world of fact-checking, there are best practices in the craft, and nuances to consider. Fact-checking also wades into deeper waters: those of philosophy, ethics, and social bias. But at its core, fact-checking is quite simply an application of critical thinking skills: skills that can be honed, and used for good. At a time when the media has lost the faith of many Americans, the magazine fact-checker can play a critical role in building that trust, one scrupulously vetted story at a time.

This thesis has two aims. The first one is to elucidate how Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) functions as a Bildungsroman, and the other one is to demonstrate how the novel also has a coming of age aspect based on feminism. Whilst Alice matures in the traditional sense, she also in parallel does so as a stronger female fighting for gender rights with signs of feminism. The feminist angle as well as the surreal world of Wonderland makes the novel a not very obvious Bildungsroman in a genre dominated by male protagonists. For Alice to be a young female child who ends up in a fantasy world thus makes her a very fascinating character. The central hypothesis of this thesis is that what Alice is exposed to and reacts to in Wonderland generally reflects the genre of a Bildungsroman and also specifically a feminist Bildungsroman. Theoretical framework is based on the ideas of Franco Moretti, Mikhail Bakhtin, Thomas Jeffers, Carol Lazzaro-Weis, George Eliot and Elizabeth Drew Stoddard, as well as novels by Eliot and Stoddard. This includes dynamic protagonists, unpredictable development, symbols of modernity, the quest for universality, and minor characters who make sure that the protagonist develops, as well as feminist struggle by means of disregarding the ‘cult of true womanhood’ in a genre and society dominated by men.

Thesis advisor: Dawei Chen
We investigate the birational geometry of Mg and Mg,n through the use of the strata of abelian differentials and the strata of zero residue differentials that form affine invariant submanifolds in the strata. We compute the class of codimension one subvarieties in Mg and Mg,n coming from these strata and study their birational significance
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016
Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: Mathematics

This thesis makes a contribution to three discrete projects in organic electron transfer chemistry. Chapter 2 investigates the new reactivity of bis-pyridinylidene 1.395. It successfully demonstrates the novel conversion of triflate esters and triflamides to the corresponding alcohols and amines and explores the reaction mechanism,1 and concludes that alkyl triflates are deprotected by a reductive mechanism. Aryl triflates are also deprotected by this reagent, but it is not yet clear whether these reactions are effected by electron transfer or by nucleophile-electrophile chemistry. Chapter 3 showcases the development of two new mono-tethered super-electron-donors 3.34 and 3.42.2 The isolation of these highly reactive tetraazafulvalenes was followed by efforts to prepare the most unstable mono- and non-tethered tetraazafulvalenes 1.309a and 1.309b, respectively via a deprotonation route; this showed NMR evidence of tetraazafulvalene-like molecules, and analysis of these is discussed. In turn, this inspired the successful synthesis and isolation of these compounds within our group by Birch reduction.2 Until now it was believed that mono- and non-tethered imidazole-derived tetraazafulvalenes were too unstable to exist.3,4 Chapter 4 Finally the reactivity of a benzimidazole-derived tetraazafulvalene, 1.275 is reported. This molecule generates aryl radicals from iodoarenes by single electron transfer. The novel reactivity of this benzimidazole-derived super-electron-donor is demonstrated in its application to indole synthesis.

L'objectiu d'aquesta tesi és triple. En primer lloc, contribuïm a aprofundir l'anàlisi de la capacitat del model dels tres factors de Fama i French (1993) per valorar els actius financers a Europa. En segon lloc, estudiem la relació entre els factors de Fama i French (FF) i el risc sistemàtic, i, per tant, en quina mesura _es coherent amb la interpretació del model intertemporal de valoració d'actius, que va més enllà de l'efecte mida i de l'efecte valor comptable-valor de mercat. I, en tercer lloc, tenim com a objectiu mesurar la integració dels mercats d'accions europeus, emmarcada en el procés continu d'alineació institucional i econòmica a Europa.

En la literatura empírica de la valoració d'actius, el model dels tres factors ha esdevingut un dels més populars per ajustar segons el risc. No obstant això, fins ara, la majoria de treballs empírics han fet referència a un nombre reduït de mercats, especialment als Estats Units. Perquè el model sigui acceptat com a alternativa vàlida al model de fixació de preus d'actius de capital (CAPM), cal més suport empíric. En aquest treball, fem servir una nova mostra amb una construcció nova dels factors de FF que s'aplica en un conjunt extensiu de països, indústries i regions europees. Els resultats que n'hem obtingut impliquen que el model dels tres factors domina clarament el CAPM en cadascuna de les submostres; tot això a banda que els tests formals indiquen que cap dels models és totalment satisfactori per a la valoració d'actius. A més, documentem que l'ampliació del model de FF amb el factor moment noms millora marginalment la capacitat explicativa quan s'aplica a les rendibilitats de les accions europees.

El gran èxit del model dels tres factors de Fama i French també ha generat un debat intens sobre la racionalitat econòmica que hi ha al darrere. Nosaltres hem aprofundit aquesta qüestió estudiant si la mida i la ràtio valor comptable-valor de mercat estan relacionades amb oportunitats futures d'inversió. Ho hem estudiat des de dues perspectives diferents. D'una banda, suposem que els canvis en el conjunt d'oportunitats d'inversió es poden representar mitjançant canvis en la ràtio de creixement macroeconòmic. D'altra banda, vinculem els factors de FF construïts a futures ràtios de creixement del PIB a Europa, i trobem que només la mida sembla que conté alguna informació sobre el creixement macroeconòmic futur. Però, fins i tot aquest efecte de la mida no es manté en les nostres diferents submostres.

En un segon pas, relacionem la mida i la ràtio valor comptable-valor de mercat amb canvis en els diferencials dels tipus d'interès per crèdit i per termini. Aquests diferencials de rendiment es reconeixen per la capacitat de marcar les oportunitats d'inversió. Malgrat tot, els nostres resultats indiquen que ni els canvis en el diferencial de crèdit a Europa ni els canvis en el diferencial de termini poden actuar com a punts de vista alternatius subjacents als factors de mida o de valor comptable-valor de mercat. De fet, els resultats empírics que obtenim indiquen que, si augmentem el model dels tres factors amb els canvis en els diferencials de crèdit i de termini, fem incrementar la capacitat de valorar carteres d'accions en tots els àmbits: país, indústria i regió. Per tant, sembla que les variables s'haurien de considerar més com a complementàries que com a substitutives, a diferència dels resultats obtinguts per als Estats Units (vegeu Petkova, 2006; Hahn i Lee, 2006).

Finalment, per estudiar el grau d'integració dels mercats d'accions europeus, seguim dues vies relacionades. Primer, mostrem que una versió paneuropea del model dels tres factors és capaç d'explicar una porció considerable de la rendibilitat de les carteres domèstiques. Aquest resultat indica que el model conté informació rellevant per valorar les accions domèstiques. Alhora, el resultat pot implicar que els mercats europeus estan integrats (vegeu Bekaert i Harvey, 1995; Roll i Ross, 1980). En un segon pas, més genèric, fem servir l'esquema del Factor de descompte estocàstic (SDF) per estimar i comparar els nuclis de valoració d'actius domèstics en els diferents mercats europeus. Els resultats indiquen que la quantitat d'informació compartida per aquests nuclis de valoració augmenta significativament en el temps, especialment després de l'arribada de l'euro. Aquest resultat pot servir com a indicador addicional de l'increment del nivell d'integració dels mercats d'accions europeus.
El objetivo de esta tesis es triple. Por una parte, contribuimos a profundizar en el análisis de la capacidad del modelo de 3 Factores de Fama y French (1993) para valorar activos financieros en Europa. En segundo lugar, estudiamos la relación entre los factores de Fama y French y el riesgo sistemático. Y por tanto, en qué medida el modelo 3 Factores es consistente con una interpretación de modelo intertemporal de valoración de activos; que va más allá del efecto tamaño y el efecto valor contable - valor de mercado. En tercer lugar, nuestro objetivo es medir la integración de los mercados de acciones europeos, enmarcada en el continuado proceso de alineamiento institucional y económico en Europa.

En la literatura empírica de valoración de activos el modelo de 3 Factores se ha convertido en uno de los más populares para ajustar por riesgo. Sin embargo, hasta la fecha, la mayoría de los trabajos empíricos se han aplicado a un número reducido de mercados, especialmente en los Estados Unidos. Para que el modelo sea aceptado como una alternativa válida al CAPM, se requiere un mayor soporte empírico. En este trabajo utilizamos una nueva muestra, con una nueva construcción de los factores de FF, que se aplica a un extensivo conjunto de países, industrias y regiones europeas. Nuestros resultados implican que en cada una de nuestras sub-muestras, el modelo de 3 Factores claramente domina el CAPM; al margen de que los test formales indiquen que ninguno de los modelos es totalmente satisfactorio para la valoración de activos. También documentamos que la ampliación del modelo de 3 Factores con el factor momento sólo mejora marginalmente la capacidad explicativa cuando se aplica a las rentabilidades de las acciones europeas.

El enorme éxito del modelo de 3 Factores de Fama y French ha abierto también un intenso debate sobre la racionalidad económica que existe detrás de los mismos. Nosotros ahondamos en esta discusión estudiando si el tamaño y la ratio valor contable-valor de mercado están relacionados con oportunidades de inversión futuras. Lo estudiamos mediante dos aproximaciones distintas, primero suponemos que los cambios en el conjunto de las oportunidades de inversión pueden representarse mediante cambios en la ratio de crecimiento macroeconómico. Por otra parte, vinculamos los factores de FF construidos a futuras ratios de crecimiento de PIB en Europa, y encontramos que sólo el tamaño parece contener alguna información sobre el crecimiento macroeconómico futuro. Pero, incluso este efecto tamaño, no se mantiene para en nuestras distintas sub-muestras.

En un segundo paso, relacionamos el tamaño y la ratio valor contable - valor de mercado con cambios en los diferenciales de los tipos de interés por crédito y plazo. Estos diferenciales de rendimiento están reconocidos por su capacidad para marcar las oportunidades de inversión. Sin embargo, nuestros resultados indican que ni los cambios en el diferencial de crédito en Europa, ni los cambios en el diferencial de plazo, pueden actuar como aproximaciones alternativas subyacentes al los factores de tamaño o valor contable - valor de mercado. De hecho, los resultados empíricos que obtenemos indican que si aumentamos el modelo de 3 Factores con los cambios en los diferenciales de crédito y plazo, incrementa la capacidad de valorar carteras de acciones a todos los niveles: país, industria y región. Por tanto, parecería que las variables deberían de ser consideradas más como complementarias que como substitutivas, a diferencia de los resultados obtenidos para los Estados Unidos (vid Petkova, 2006; Hahn y Lee, 2006).

Finalmente, para estudiar el grado de integración de los mercados de acciones europeos seguimos dos vías relacionadas. Primero mostramos que una versión paneuropea del modelo de 3 Factores es capaz de explicar una porción considerable de la rentabilidad de las carteras domesticas. Este resultado indica que el modelo contiene información relevante para valorar acciones domésticas. Al mismo tiempo, el resultado puede implica que los mercados europeos están integrados (vid. Bekaert y Harvey, 1995; Roll y Ross, 1980). En un segundo paso, más genérico, utilizamos el esquema de Factor de Descuento Estocástico (SDF) para estimar y comparar los núcleos de valoración de activos domésticos en los diferentes mercados europeos. Nuestros resultados indican que la cantidad de información compartida por esos núcleos de valoración aumenta significativamente en el tiempo, especialmente después de la llegada del euro. Este resultado puede servir como un indicador adicional del incremento del nivel de integración de los mercados europeos de acciones.
The main purpose of this dissertation is threefold. For one, we aim to shed further light on the general pricing ability of the Fama and French (1993) (FF) three-factor model (3FM) in Europe. For two, we mean to assess whether the FF factors are related to systematic risk and, thus, whether the 3FM is consistent with an intertemporal asset pricing explanation behind the size and book-to-market effects. For three, we endeavor to measure the extent to which European equity markets are integrated. This is motivated by the continuous institutional and economic alignment process in Europe.

The 3FM has become one of the most popular models of risk adjustment in the empirical asset pricing literature. However, to date most empirical work has been done for a few selected markets, especially the US. Hence, the 3FM demands more time and further empirical support before it may be accepted as a credible theory-based model to replace the CAPM. We use a fresh holdout sample with newly constructed FF factors for an extensive set of European countries, industries, and regions. Our findings imply that in each of our sub-samples, the 3FM clearly dominates the CAPM, even if formal test statistics imply that neither model is free of mispricing. We also document that augmenting the 3FM by a momentum factor may only marginally help to explain European equity return behavior.

The enormous success of the 3FM has also triggered an extensive debate about the economic rationale of the FF factors. We purse this discussion by assessing via two different approaches whether size and book-to-market may be related to time varying investment opportunities. We first assume that changes in the investment opportunity set are summarized by changes in future macroeconomic growth rates. Nevertheless, if we link our newly constructed FF factors to future GDP growth rates in the Eurozone, then we find that only size appears to contain some information on future macroeconomic growth. Yet, not even this finding for the size effect is, admittedly, very persistent across our sub-samples.

In a second step, we relate size and book-to-market to changes in European default and term spreads. These yield spreads are generally acknowledged for their ability to track investment opportunities. Our results suggest, however, that neither changes in the European default spread nor changes in the European term spread may proxy for the risk underlying our size and book-to-market factors. In fact, our empirical findings imply that augmenting the 3FM by changes in these yield spreads may notably help to price European equity portfolios at country, industry, and regional level. Hence, it appears that the variables may be considered complements rather than substitutes. This is contrary to US findings (see Petkova, 2006, Hahn and Lee, 2006).

Finally, we follow two related approaches to study the degree to which European stock markets are integrated. We first show that a pan-European version of the 3FM is able to explain a considerable proportion of domestic equity portfolio returns. For one, this entails that the model contains valuable information from pricing domestic equity. For two, it may imply that European stock markets are integrate (see Bekaert and Harvey, 1995, Roll and Ross, 1980). In a second and more generic step, we utilize a stochastic discount factor (SDF) framework to estimate and compare domestic pricing kernels across European markets. Our results convey that the amount of information shared by these kernels increases significantly over time, especially after the advent of the euro. This may serve as a further indicator of an increasing European stock market integration.

[From the text] Tonight I am going to tell you about my research on a another mollusc, the humble abalone. - In contrast with the highly evolved squid, this marine snail belonging to the ancient archeogastrod lineage which has a much simpler anatomy and lifestyle. It doesn’t posses a proper brain mass, only having 4 ganglia or nerves knots at the front end. Its two simple eye spots which detect light and dark, a tough shell and a large and extremely powerful foot muscle to adhere to rocks. This simple configuration has served well for over 100 million years.

The primary idea behind the work in this thesis is that accretion discs interacting with astrophysical bodies, from planets to supermassive black holes (SMBHs), can strongly affect the dynamical behaviour of those bodies. While this idea is by no means new, observational and theoretical developments in recent years provide fresh motivation to consider this effect across a number of astrophysical contexts. Of particular relevance to the work here are three observational measurements which I attempt to reconcile with theory by invoking interactions with accretion discs. Firstly, observations of giant exoplanets show that they prefer to inhabit eccentric orbits, which is unexpected given the predictions of planet formation theory. Conversely, Kepler’s discovery of planets with low eccentricities around moderately eccentric binaries goes against theoretical expectation that their orbits should be eccentric. In galactic centres, binary supermassive black holes are not observed despite theoretical expectations that their evolution should drive them to ~ parsec separations and leave them there. In this thesis I use high-resolution smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations to investigate each of these problems involving planet- and binary-disc interactions. I show that these interactions are unable to solve the problem of eccentric giant exoplanets, but that they can cause damping of circumbinary planetary eccentricity and so are able to explain Kepler’s circumbinary planets. I use this latter to place a limit on the surface density in which Kepler-16b in particular can have formed. I also show that a disc formed from a gas cloud moving prograde with respect to a SMBH binary will fragment to form stars sooner than a similar retrograde disc. Consequently, a retrograde disc is able to drive stronger binary evolution than is the prograde disc. Allowing that a large number of such encounters would be expected in the aftermath of the galaxy merger that formed the binary, this process may be able to solve the ‘last parsec problem.’

Inequality has been described as a 'global pandemic' that agonises poor young people as they struggle to assemble the necessary knowledge, skills and resources for adulthood. Being excluded from the wealth and opportunities others in society enjoy is a challenging experience. This thesis explores such experiences by looking at the almajiri system in Kano State in northern Nigeria. The almajirai are boys and young men who live with an Islamic teacher to study the Qur'an. In the context of attempts to universalise primary education and escalating fears of Muslim militancy they have attracted overwhelmingly negative attention. Informed by ethnographic and participatory fieldwork, this thesis traces young people's trajectories through the 'traditional' Qur'anic education system. A declining rural economy, a public education system in disarray, and frequent family breakups sustain demand for the system despite its waning status. Almajirai and their parents invoke their religious commitment and the educative effects of hardship to explain enrolment. Yet, their experiences threaten to undermine the almajirai's self-justifications. With inequalities on the rise, they acquire aspirations during their sojourns in urban areas that match badly with the ethos underpinning almajiri education. The 'modem' forms of childhood they wish for will likely elude them, and poverty bars many from accessing the 'modem' knowledge (Islamic and secular) necessary today to earn status or a stable livelihood. While tales of alienation and radicalisation lack empirical footing, the almajirai's future prospects are bleak. Extrapolating from how the almajirai engage with their constrained circumstances, I reflect on the forms of agency available to young people who are incorporated into society on adverse terms. I conclude that groups who, like the almajirai, suffer both economic and valuational disadvantage likely pursue strategies with self-defeating or socially corrosive effects. It is therefore imperative to address the structural forces causing their disadvantage

Includes abstract.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 117-119).
This thesis describes the design and implementation of several instruments for digitizing and processing analogue astronomical signals collected using radio telescopes. Modern radio telescopes have significant digital signal processing demands that are typically best met using custom processing engines implemented in Field Programmable Gate Arrays. These demands essentially stem from the ever-larger analogue bandwidths that astronomers wish to observe, resulting in large data volumes that need to be processed in real time. We focused on the development of spectrometers for enabling improved pulsar² science on the Allen Telescope Array, the Hartebeesthoek Radio Observatory telescope, the Nançay Radio Telescope, and the Parkes Radio Telescope. We also present work that we conducted on the development of real-time pulsar timing instrumentation.

This thesis is an interpretive inquiry that seeks hermeneutic understandings of pedagogic moments through encountering and interrogating my lifeworld. I question our understanding of mind, self, other, world, and reality that informs our worldview. My inquiry manifests evidence that pedagogy is something we are and can be rather than something we do. It is a tribute to pedagogy’s ineffability, found in relating, touch and tact, showing pedagogy as a desirable phenomenon for human science research.

This study examines the translation of children’s literature under state censorship during Franco’s Spain (1939-1975), with specific reference to the Spanish translations of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885). At the same time as it lays a particular focus on the impact of Francoism on texts produced for children in Francoist Spain, this study also concerns itself with the relations between ideology and children’s literature in a more general sense. The chapters integrate analysis of sources including the regime’s censorship laws, the pre-publication translation drafts submitted by the publishers in compliance with the regime’s censorship requirement, the official censorship records, showing the censors’ “readings” of the translation drafts, and also, school textbooks used under Franco. Based on the examination of such sources, this study demonstrates the censors’ objections to the translations of Twain’s works, as a result of both their compliance with the censorship regulations imposed by the regime and their conscious efforts to defend an ideal Francoist child image vis-à-vis its foreign “others” as induced by the translations. Meanwhile, proceeding from a critical conceptualisation of ideology, the chapters in this study also elaborate on the complex power relationships involved in the activities of translating for children under Francoism.

The synthesis of dendritic ligands supported on silica gel and polymers, and their use in the rhodium catalyzed hydroformylation reaction is presented in this thesis. In building a softer, more organic moiety on the surface of a heterogeneous support, the potential of uniting the advantages of heterogeneous catalysis with that of homogeneous systems is explored. The synthesis of polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimers anchored on silica, via the iterative additions of methylacrylate and ethylenediamine to aminopropyl silica, is carried out. A series of C4, C6 and C12 diamines were also used to construct PAMAM dendrimers with longer diamine linkers. Phosphanylation of the various PAMAM dendrimers on silica was accomplished and the supported bis-(diphenylphosphanylmethylated) ligands were complexed to rhodium. The heterogeneous complexes were found to be effective catalysts for the hydroformylation of various aryl olefins and vinyl esters, showing good to excellent regio-selectivity for the branched aldehydes. Aliphatic olefins were also easily converted into the corresponding aldehydes, however, only a slight excess of the linear product was observed. Rhodium complexes of bis-(diphenylphosphanylmethylated) pseudopeptide based ligands immobilized on resin were prepared and studied in the hydroformylation of various olefins. The effect of relocating the metal centers from the periphery to the interior of the dendrimer was also examined. The recyclability of the aforementioned heterogeneous catalysts was investigated, however, leaching of the metal from the support and the accompanying loss of activity is observed. The synthesis of PAMAM and polyarylether ligand supported on PEG was attempted. The preparation of a soluble triphenylphosphite supported on PEG was also attempted and the crude system was evaluated as a recyclable ligand for the hydroformylation of 1-octene. Preliminary investigations into the activity of the zwitterionic (eta6-C6H5BPh 3)-Rh+(1,5-cyclooctadiene) complex with phosphite under mild hydroformylation conditions resulted in a surprising regioselective outcome where the industrially more important linear aldehyde of 1-octene was favoured with high selectivity.

Cancer of the brain and CNS account for only 2% of new cancer cases in the UK however it is responsible for 7% of cancer deaths of those aged under 70 years of age. Although surgery falls short of a cure it is the primary method of treatment. Two of the key problems in tumour surgery in the brain are a) that many tumours are visually indistinguishable from normal tissue even for experienced surgeons and b) that the risk of post-surgical neurological deficit is related to the proximity of functional (or 'eloquent') neurological tissue. In collaboration with surgeons at the Southampton University NHS Hospitals Trust we seek to address both of these problems. Firstly there is literature evidence that normal and neoplastic tissue have different spectral characteristics in the visible and near-infrared region. We investigate whether these can be practically imaged intraoperatively to establish disease state. Secondly the redox state of haemoglobin is known to affect it's visible and near-infrared spectral characteristics. This project investigates whether it is possible to identify the haemodynamic response associated with functional activity intraoperatively in the human brain. Prion diseases are fatal chronic neurodegenerative diseases of animals and man. They have gained notoriety due to recent outbreaks of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) and the evidence that they can be transmitted between species, including to man. Exposure to BSE infected material has been shown to cause variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease in man. Prion disease is also used as a model of other neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimers disease. Remarkably little is known about this class of disease including the specific cause of the neurodegeneration. Prions are a mis-folded protein which have a different conformation than the normal protein. Certain spectral features in the mid infrared region are associated with protein conformation. In collaboration with neuro-biologists within the university and using a synchrotron light source we investigate the application of multispectral imaging in early stage prion disease. By analysis of the protein conformation sensitivity of the mid infrared spectra (with particular interest in the Amide I band) we seek to identify structurally relevant markers in a mouse model before clinical symptoms of the disease are evident. This may lead to better understanding of the disease progression and the neurotoxic element

This thesis comprises an original work of Weird fiction, entitled The Adventures of Kunstlicht in the Netherworld, and a commentary which explores its relationship to the fiction and writing practices of the American Weird fantasy author, H. P. Lovecraft. The novel is the first person narrative account of Christian Blackwood’s experiences with his goth band, Kunstlicht, their pursuit by politically motivated occultists, and encounters with serial killers, avant-garde artists, revenant Nazis and supernatural folkloric monsters. The majority of the story unfolds retrospectively in conversations with the former police officer Wade. The final section shows the band’s own attempt to perform practical magic and their meeting with a resurrected pagan god. The commentary opens with an introductory examination of the extent of Lovecraft’s influence on fantasy (and especially horror) fiction since his death, the general rationale for using him as model, and the specific thematic issues relevant to this novel. There follow three chapters. The first chapter discusses the realist tendencies in Lovecraft’s work, his world-building strategies and those in recent Weird fiction. It then shows how Lovecraft’s prescriptions were applied in this novel, and how this affected the novel’s narrative and tone. The second chapter examines the connection between his work – and that of his predecessors – and the cultural, scientific and occult thought of his time, showing how these elements were combined to give depth to his corpus. I then explain how this approach was applied and updated in my own novel. In the third chapter I explore Lovecraft’s extensive synthetic mythology, its relationship to existing folklore and myth, and to a folkloric interpretation of the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. I then explain how I combined occult and Nietzschean elements with the Lovecraftian to produce a more complex Weird novel. In the concluding section, I briefly examine how the novel fits with other recent Lovecraft-inspired work, and assess to what extent it succeeds as Weird fiction.

I. Diels-Alder reactions of 1,2,3,4,9,9-hexachloro-1,4,4a,8a-tetrahydro-1,4-metha- nonaphthalene (16) and 1,2,3,4,9,9-hexachloro-1,4,6,7-tetrahydro-1,4-methanonaphthalene (17) toward dienophiles N-methyl-1,2,4-triazoline-3,5-dione (MTAD), N-phenyl-1,2,4-triazoline-3,5-dione (PTAD) and/or N-methylmaleimide (NMM) have been examined. II. Epoxides derived from functionalized 1,4,4a,9a-tetrahydro-9,10-dioxo-1,4-methanoanthracenes (1a and 1b) undergo acid- and base-promoted intramolecular nucleophilic ring-opening to form new polycyclic alcohols. III. The title cycloalkylidenecarbene has been generated via reaction of 8-methylenepentacyclo[5.4.0.0^{2,6}.0^{3,10}. 0^{5.9}]undecan-11-one (44) with diethyl diazomethyl-phosphonate (DAMP). This species could be trapped in situ by cyclohexene, thereby affording the corresponding cycloadduct 46a and 46b.

Thesis (Psy. D.)--Wheaton College Graduate School, 2004.
Abstract. "In an attempt to bolster active family interaction, the Big Idea Foundation ... designed a set of activities based on the principles of experiential education"--Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 33-38).

Le mythe holmésien ne cesse de prendre de l'ampleur. Le phénomène du grand détective repose, en partie, sur ses considérations narratologiques. Une stratégie narrative réunissant intrigues, personnages, narrateur et lecteur s'allie à des techniques littéraires caractéristiques du genre du nouveau détective. L'évolution du mythe de nos jours se traduit par des adaptations "fidèles" des adventures of Sherlock Holmes diffusées à la radio et à la télévision
The myth of Sherlock Hholmes is still growing. This phenomenon has its origins, in part, in the narrative technique of conan doyle which combines a commercial strategy covering plot, character, narrator and reader with literary devices typical of the detective story. Beyond the written text the myth is furthered by recent faithful radio and television adaptations of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the first series of twelve short stories

The spatial categorisations of urban and rural are still used in academia, lay terminology and policy formation in spite of a postmodern obsession with the deconstruction of binaries. Hitherto, the urban rural dichotomy has been exposed to little scrutiny, and the critiques that have been made come from the epistemological standpoint of total urbanisation which assumes the rural will be effaced by a perennial urban sprawl. The rural urban dichotomy is a derivative of the larger ideological dualism of nature and society and it has long been postulated, particularly from the standpoint of political ecology, that in the Anthropocene, nature does not exist beyond human influence. This would, in theory, support the theory that rural space is becoming effaced. Previous studies have, however, demonstrated that this subjugation of the rural to the urban works to stigmatise rural populations and engender disenfranchisement that has led to a resurgence in far-right nationalism across much of Europe. This subjugation has been enforced through  this very urban norm in which both technocrats and academics favour the urban as a field for policy formation and research. When attempting to define the urban and the rural, it was found that the terms (a) are confused and confusing, evading any useful definition; (b) perpetuate a false neutrality that assumes a linear progression from rural to urban and (c) fail to recognise the complexities of space which resists binary distinctions. As such, I used Lefebvre’s spatial trifecta which suggests space is produced by three complimentary and contradictory processes: of perceived space (the material space of what we can actually see and touch, altered by seemingly banal everyday practices), conceived space (the (re)representations of space that are circulated by planners and technocrats) and lived space (the affectual space of emotion, memory and meanings) in order to think through the problems of the binary.  As such, this thesis aimed to explore whether the urban and the rural still function as legitimate spatial categories and, in doing so, used an emplaced, embodied and mobile exploration of five case studies within Stockholms län in order to explore the phenomena. This was appropriate as it mirrored the affectual potential believed to be induced through rural and natural landscapes. Indeed, by developing a methodology that can better account for lived space, we can attempt to dislodge perceived and conceived spaces as the more easily accessible conceptual framework for thinking through space. The findings showed that there were many different species of urban and rural spaces, many spaces that were both urban and rural and many that were neither. Indeed, an acquiescence of purportedly rural and urban features within purportedly urban spaces, and vice versa, was the most telling result in terms of disrupting the idea that the urban and rural are stable but antipodal spatial categories. I also found the rural to be a coterminous process that produces space with and against urban landscapes, and thus should not be subjugated.

Women's sexual refusals are central to both conservative and/or religious campaigns to curb and control sexuality, and to feminist campaigns for sexual freedom. While public health messages implore young women to 'Just Say No' to premarital/teenage sex, the feminist 'No Means No' campaign tries to ensure that women's refusals are not ignored or disregarded. Drawing on data from 15 focus groups with 58 female, heterosexual, school (age range 16-18) and university student (age range 18-50; modal age 20:8) volunteers, I discuss women's talk about saying 'no' in relation to three existing social scientific theories: miscommunication theoiy, emotion work theory and sexual script theory. Each of these theories suggests a different explanation for women's (lack of) sexual refusals: women do not say 'no' clearly enough; women are reluctant to say 'no' because they are protecting their male partner from feelings of rejection; or cultural expectations dictate that women should refuse sex while men should continue to initiate sex. I provide two competing approaches to analysing these three theories. The first (essentialist) approach treats women's talk as transparent evidence of real world events or of psychological phenomenon (i.e. women miscommunicate or women do perform emotion work). The second (constructed) approach treats women's talk as produced in a particular interactional setting in order to serve particular interactional functions. This thesis expands feminist debates about the relative value of essentialism and social constructionism for understanding women's lives and for advancing theory. The majority of feminists, including those who identify their work as social constructionist, adopt an essentialist approach to data analysis. This thesis contributes to the development of feminist psychology both by investigating women's accounts of refusing sex, and by critically evaluating these two different epistemological approaches to analysing qualitative data.

In 1719, Daniel Defoe wrote his first fiction The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe without knowing that the protagonist of the novel, Robinson Crusoe, would be liberated from his cultural matrix and deployed as a dominant economic metaphor with the advent of the so-called marginalist revolution in the second half of the nineteenth century. This thesis intends to: i) with reference to an habits of thought approach, unearth the institutional nature of the metamorphosis of Crusoe from a figure of the literary realm to the economic man of neoclassical economics, and ii) based on a rereading of Defoe&rsquo
s original text, offer an alternative reinterpretation which would turn upside down the prevalent presuppositions of neoclassical economics portraying an isolated, universal and axiomatically rational Crusoe. Accordingly, in this study, Crusoe is presented as a specific time- and space-bound human being preserving and perpetuating his institutionally forged character traits even during his sojourn on the &lsquo
institution-free&rsquo
uninhabited island
a methodological and expeditious man, whose rationality was based not on the fulfillment of axioms but on reasoning
and an entrepreneur aiming at economic development through innovation.

This essay discusses how Mark Twain in the novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn uses the description of the white American Christian civilization in order to overturn the colonial notion of white supremacy. This is done through juxtaposing the characterization of the people of the white American civilization and the people that are alienated or ‘other’. The Grangerford family, the Widow and Miss Watson, and Colonel Sherburn are brought up as examples of the white American civilization’s hypocrisy and double standard in the novel. The analysis focuses on how these supposedly Christian characters do not follow the Christian ethics and sermon teaching even though they claim to do so. The colonial notion of the white western civilization’s supremacy over other people’s societies is thus overturned by Twain’s description of the immorality of this white American society. As opposed to this, the people who are outside of this society and who do not label themselves as Christians, prove to be those who in reality follow the Christian notion of brotherly love towards everybody, no matter the social standing or skin color of the person in need. Furthermore, Huck’s moral fight whether or not he should continue to help the runaway slave Jim to freedom or turn him in to the slave owner Miss Watson, is crucial. Through the portrait of this inner struggle, Twain pinpoints the absurdity of the supremacy of such an immoral law. The law of society was upheld with an almost religious devotion, and the irony in this works to further overturn the notion of the white American civilization’s supremacy.

At the center of all medieval Christian accounts of both metaphysics and ethics stands the claim that being and goodness are necessarily connected, and that grasping the nature of this connection is fundamental to explaining the nature of goodness itself. In that vein, medievals offered two distinct ways of conceiving this necessary connection: the nature approach and the creation approach. The nature approach explains the goodness of an entity by an appeal to the entity’s nature as the type of thing it is, and the extent to which it fulfills or perfects the potentialities in its nature. In contrast, the creation approach explains both the being and goodness of an entity by an appeal to God’s creative activity: on this view, both a thing’s being and its goodness are derived from, and explained in terms of, God’s being and goodness. Studies on being and goodness in medieval philosophy often culminate in the synthesizing work of Thomas Aquinas, the leading Dominican theologian at Paris in the 13th century, who brought together these two rival theories about the nature of goodness. Unfortunately, few have paid attention to a distinctively Franciscan approach to the topic around this same time period. My dissertation provides a remedy to this oversight by means of a thorough examination of John Duns Scotus’s approach to being and goodness—an approach that takes into account the shifting tide toward voluntarism (both ethical and theological) at the University of Paris in the late 13th century. I argue that Scotus is also a synthesizer of sorts, harmonizing the two distinct nature approaches of Augustine and Aristotle with his own unique ideas in ways that have profound implications for the future of medieval ethical theorizing, most notably, in his rejection of both the natural law and ethical eudaimonism of Thomas Aquinas. After the introduction, I analyze the nature of primary goodness—the goodness that Scotus thinks is convertible with being and thus a transcendental attribute of everything that exists. There, I compare the notion of convertibility of being and goodness among Scotus and his contemporaries. While Scotus agrees with the mainstream tradition that being and goodness are necessarily coextensive properties of everything that exists, he argues that being and good are formally rather than conceptually distinct. I argue that when the referents of being and good are considered, both views amount to the same thing. But when the concepts of being and good are considered, positing a formal distinction does make a good deal of difference: good does not simply add something to being conceptually, but formally: it is a quasi-attribute of being that exists in the world independently of our conception of it. Thus Scotus’s formal distinction provides a novel justification for the necessary connection between being and goodness. Furthermore, I argue that Scotus holds an Augustinian hierarchy of being. This hierarchical ranking of being is based upon the magnitude or perfection of the thing’s nature. But since goodness is a necessarily coextensive perfection of being, it too comes in degrees dependent upon the type of being, arranged in terms of the same hierarchy. This account, while inspired by Augustine’s hierarchical nature approach, is expressed in terms of Aristotelian metaphysics. But this necessary connection between being and goodness in medieval philosophy faced a problem: Following Augustine, medievals claimed that “everything that exists is good insofar as it exists.”’ But how is that compatible with the existence of sinful acts: if every being, in so far as it has being, is good, then every act, insofar as it has being, is good. But if sinful acts are bad, then we seem to be committed to saying either that bad acts are good, or that not every act, in so far as it has being, is good. This first option seems infelicitous; the second denies Augustine’s claims that “everything that exists is good.” Lombard and his followers solve this problem by distinguishing ontological goodness from moral goodness and claiming that moral goodness is an accident of some acts and does not convert with being. So the sinful act, qua act, is (ontologically) good. But the sinful act, qua disorder is (morally) bad. Eventually, three distinctive grades of accidental or moral goodness will be applied to human acts: generic, circumstantial, and meritorious. I argue that Scotus follows the traditional account of Peter Lombard, Philip the Chancellor, Albert the Great, and Bonaventure in distinguishing ontological goodness from moral goodness, and claiming that only the former converts with being, while the latter is an accident of the act. Aquinas, in contrast, writing in the heyday of the Aristotelian renaissance, focuses instead on the role of the act in the agent’s perfection and posits his convertibility thesis of being and goodness in the moral as well as the metaphysical realm. Thus, when one begins a late medieval discussion with Aquinas, and then considers what Scotus says, it seems as though Scotus is the radical who departs from the conservative teachings of Aquinas. And this is just false: we need to situate both Aquinas and Scotus within the larger Sentence Commentary tradition extending back to Peter Lombard and his followers in order to understand their agreement and divergence from the tradition. Next, I turn the discussion to Scotus’s analysis of rightness and wrongness. I first explore the relationship between rightness and God’s will, and situate Scotus’s account within contemporary discussions of theological voluntarism. I argue Scotus holds a restricted-causal-will-theory —whereby only contingent deontological propositions depend upon God’s will for their moral status. In contrast to Aquinas, Scotus denies that contingent moral laws—the Second Table of the 10 Commandments (such do not steal, do not murder, etc.)—are grounded in human nature, and thus he limits the extent to which moral reasoning can move from natural law to the moral obligations we have toward one another. In conjunction with these claims, I argue that Scotus distinguishes goodness from rightness: An act’s rightness will depend on its conformity to either (1) a necessary moral truth or (2) God’s commanding some contingent moral truth. The moral goodness of an act, in contrast, involves right reason’s determination of the suitability or harmony of all factors pertaining to the act. In establishing this, also argue that much of the disparity among contemporary Scotus scholarship on the question of whether Scotus was a divine command theorist or natural law theorist should be directly attributed to a failure to recognize Scotus’s separation of the goodness of an act from the rightness of an act.

In order to experience unconditional love, prejudices must be exposed and overcome. People often meet others with a disability or handicap and unknowingly treat these individuals negatively. As a middle school teacher, I have often witnessed students behaving cruelly towards those that are different. When my dog became a paraplegic I was inspired to develop a project to assist young readers in the development of conscientious actions towards individuals with disabilities. This document chronicles the development, procedures, and outcomes of the process behind that artistic endeavor. The artistic elements of this thesis project are a written children's storybook and an educational interactive Web site to further teach inclusiveness to young readers. The images are real photos that have been manipulated to look like illustrations that enhance elements that are visually appealing to children in order to increase the images' communication value. The site has been designed to integrate the look and feel of the book, complementing and referencing it.
ID: 029050930; System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader.; Mode of access: World Wide Web.; Thesis (M.F.A.)--University of Central Florida, 2010.; Includes bibliographical references (p. 54-60).
M.F.A.
Masters
Visual Arts and Design
Arts and Humanities
Studio Art and the Computer; Visual Language and Interactive Media

The humor of Mark Twain has long fascinated his readers. Critics such as Messent (2007), Budd (2005), Gerber (1988) and Camfield (2005) have all analyzed Mark Twain’s humor to reveal nuances and to help further the understanding of what makes Twain’s writing humorous. However, there is a distinct gap in the research so far conducted investigating Twain’s humor in relation to young readers, which this paper will begin to address. Twain’s novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (2007) poses a relevant subject for this research as Twain explicitly (in the preface to the novel) professes to write both for children and adults simultaneously. Writing in such a way can be categorized as either “double address” or “dual address”, understanding these terms according to the definitions of Barbara Wall (1991). In this paper I will argue that Mark Twain manages to create “dual address” in Tom Sawyer by using what Greg Camfield (2005) calls “amiable humor” and constructing scenes out of childhood in order to produce delight and nostalgia. By reading closely excerpts of the book and analyzing Twain’s specific use of humor through three prominent theories—superiority theory, relief theory and incongruity— it becomes possible to identify what the implied reader is meant to find humorous, and therefore if Twain manages to establish a “dual address”. An understanding of Twain’s humor from the perspective of both young and adult reader furthers our understanding of the novel by revealing Twain’s implementation of complex “dual address” narration and its implications.

In the 150 years since Lewis Carroll and John Tenniel (1865/1866) first published Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, various illustrators have found inspiration in this story to recreate its images again and again. Since Carroll and Tenniel, Wonderland has concerned itself with sociocultural ideas and the work of artists who re-illustrated this story provide ways to trace history of these ideas. Accordingly, the purpose of this project was to examine connections and breaks with tradition in illustration that contribute to an evolution of meaning in the Wonderland story. Additionally, through this project, I worked to interpret ideas from different artists in different times and spaces in an attempt to understand intersecting ideas of culture and Wonderland illustration. Through this work, I developed the concept of curation as a visual research methodology in order to make sense of and share my discoveries. Wonderland offers a rich context to explore and elucidate the arts-based qualitative methodology of curation because of its literary merits, artistic interpretations, and persistence and pervasion worldwide over the last century and a half. Curation allowed me flexibility in thinking about thematic interpretations of the illustrations I studied. Specific curatorial methods led me to identify the scene of Alice's decent to Wonderland, visual characterizations of the Hatter character, and depictions of the playing card characters as signals of sociocultural changes. When examined together, these interpretations point to an ever-shifting relationship between author, illustrators, and readers in classic, illustrated novels. Specifically, through the illustrations in Wonderland, Alice is no longer portrayed as a particular girl and illustrators over time have placed readers as the subject of the adventures. In recent times, Wonderland has gained some ability to cross over from its pages into the real world and take a look at its readers. This shift in perspective in Wonderland speaks to a current sociocultural environment wherein reality is hyper-subjective and nothing is quite as it seems.

Adventures in the Irreal is a practice-led investigation which explores the speculative possibilities of science fiction from within a contemporary art practice. As part of this process two methods for creating science fiction artworks are developed. These methods are then utilised in the creation of three science fiction artworks, with each artwork offering a unique, speculative approach to utopian aspects of its real world subject matter.