Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Harris theory'

The purpose of this research is to examine how visual communication can be interpreted in different ways and even in opposition to the creator’s intention, and to understand how different visual signs in images convey meaning to explain audience’s oppositional reading. Through a qualitative methodological approach, a semiotic comparative analysis of two covers of the fashion magazine Vogue featuring Kamala Harris will be carried out, a digital cover and a print cover. Theoretically, the analysis is grounded in postcolonialism, representation, and Stuart Hall’s encoding and decoding model of communication. The results suggest that there are signs in the photograph on Vogue’s print cover that can be interpreted from a postcolonial perspective, and both oppositional and preferred readings are discussed.

It is a central claim of modern linguistic theory that linguists do not prescribe, but describe language as it is, without pronouncing on correctness or judging one variety better than another. This attempt to exclude evaluation is motivated by a desire to be ' politically correct', which hinders objective analysis of language, and by an ill-advised imitation of the natural sciences, which obstructs the discipline's progress towards becoming a science in its own right. It involves linguists, as users of a valued variety, in self-deception and disingenuousness, distances them from the concerns of the ordinary language user, and betrays a failure to understand the involvement of social values in language, the nature of language itself, and the limits of linguistic science. On a wider scale, linguistics reflects society's devaluing and mechanisation of language. Despite growing concern expressed in the literature, and the incoherence that becomes apparent when linguists attempt to address social problems using a theory that regards language as an autonomous object, newcomers to the discipline continue to be taught that anti-prescriptivism is the natural corollary of a scientific approach to language. This thesis suggests that the way out of these difficulties is to rethink the meaning of ' theory' in linguistics. If we take the reflexivity of language seriously, building on M.A.K. Halliday's notion of 'linguistics as metaphor', we are reminded that a linguistic theory is made of language. Metalanguage must use the experiential and interpersonal meaning-making resources of everyday language. It follows that a linguistic theory cannot escape being evaluative, because evaluation is an inherent part of interpersonal meaning. If we fail to notice our own metalinguistic evaluation, this is because language disguises its evaluative meanings, or perhaps we are just not used to thinking of them as part of the grammar. To achieve clarity about the involvement of value in language, we need to turn our metalanguage back on itself - 'using the grammar to think with about the grammar' . Some ways of doing this are demonstrated here, turning the resources of systemic functional linguistics on linguists' own language. The circularity of this process should be seen not as a drawback but as a salutary reminder that linguistics is an interpretive rather than a discovery process. This knowledge should help us revalue language and make a place for evaluation in linguistic theory, paving the way for a socially responsible and productive linguistics.

Dans le contexte des neurosciences mathématiques, le modèle Intègre et Tire jouit sans aucun doute d'une grande renommée et d'une vaste littérature. Cependant, sa structure mathématique particulière, avec des termes non locaux, des mécanismes de sauts ou de diffusion partielle, combinée à la coprésence possible de différentes échelles temporelles, rend l'étude de cette équation difficile et toujours ouvert. Le modèle classique consiste en une équation qui décrit la dynamique d'un réseau neuronal en fonction du potentiel de membrane des cellules. Un réseau peut être interconnecté par des liens excitateurs ou inhibiteurs, ou déconnecté, auquel cas l'équation sera linéaire. Nous nous intéressons au comportement asymptotique de ces réseaux dans le cas linéaire, où des outils mathématiques tels que les méthodes d'entropie et integrale et la théorie de Harris ont été utiles pour démontrer la convergence vers l'état stationnaire. Dans la première extension du modèle classique d'Intègre et Tire que nous proposons, nous remplaçons la condition de bord ponctuelle par un terme non local, en introduisant un paramètre aléatoire. Pour ce nouveau système, nous prouvons la convergence en temps long au moyen de la théorie de Harris et de l'entropie relative avec une inégalité de Poincaré indépendante du paramètre aléatoire. De plus, nous étudions la convergence asymptotique des solutions de ce modèle vers celles du modèle classique. Dans la deuxième extension, nous traitons de l'ajout d'une variable pour le courant d'adaptation. Nous étudions d'abord la dynamique de cette variable seule, en analysant la régularité de la solution stationnaire en fonction des paramètres et le comportement asymptotique à l'aide des différentes méthodes de l'entropie relative avec argument de compacité et de la méthode intégrale. Nous étudions ensuite le comportementasymptotique du modèle bidimensionnel au moyen de simulations numériques et nous nous proposons des comparaisons avec une équation de Fokker-Planck similaire avec diffusion partielle et nonlinéarité. Un certain nombre de simulations numériques accompagnent l'étude de chaque modèle analysé, ce qui permet d'étayer ou d'anticiper les résultats théoriques
In the context of mathematical neuroscience, the Integrate and Fire model undoubtedly enjoys great fame and a vast literature. Yet, its peculiar mathematical structure, with non-local terms, jumps or partial diffusion mechanisms, combined with the possible co-presence of different time scales, make the study of this equation challenging and always open-ended. The classical model consists of an equation that describes the dynamics of a network of neurons based on the membrane potential of the cells. A network can be interconnected with excitatory or inhibitory linkages or disconnected, in which case the equation will be linear. Our interest is in the asymptotic behaviour of such networks in the linear case, wheremathematical tools such as the entropy and integral method and Harris theory have been useful in proving the convergence to the steady state. In the first extension of the classical Integrate and Fire model we propose, we replace the pointwise boundary condition with a non-local term, introducing a randomness parameter. For this new system, we prove long-time convergence via Harris theory and relative entropy with Poincaré inequality independent of the random parameter. Furthermore, we study the asymptotic convergence of the solutions of this model to those of the classical one. In the second extension, we dealwith the incorporation of a variable for the adaptation current. First, we study the dynamics of this last variable alone, analysing the regularity of the stationary solution in dependence on the parameters and the asymptotic behaviour by means of the different methods of relative entropy with compactness argument and integral method. We then investigate the asymptotic behaviour of the two-dimensional model through numerical simulations and we make comparison with a similar Fokker-Planck equation with partial diffusion and nonlinearity. A number of numerical simulations accompany the study of each analysed model, allowing its theoretical results to be supported or anticipated
Nel contesto delle neuroscienze matematiche, il modello di Integrate and Fire gode indubbiamente di grande fama e di una vasta letteratura. Eppure, la sua peculiare struttura matematica, con termini non-locali, meccanismi di salto o di diffusione parziale, unita all’eventuale compresenza di differenti scale temporali, rendono lo studio di questa equazione stimolante e sempre aperto. Il modello classico consiste in un’equazione che descrive la dinamica di una rete di neuroni in funzione del potenziale di membrana delle cellule. Una rete può essere interconnessa con legami eccitatori o inibitori o disconnessa, nel qual caso l’equazione sarà lineare. Noi siamo interessati al comportamento asintotico di tali reti nel caso lineare, dove strumenti matematici come l’entropia relativa, il metodo integrale e la teoria di Harris si sono rivelati utili per dimostrare la convergenza verso lo stato stazionario. Nella prima estensione del modello classico di Integrate and Fire che proponiamo, sostituiamo la condizione al bordo puntuale con un termine non locale, inserendo un parametro di casualità. Per questo nuovo sistema, dimostriamo la convergenza allo stato stazionario tramite la teoria di Harris e dell’entropia relativa con disuguaglianza di Poincaré indipendente dal parametro casuale. Inoltre, studiamo la convergenza asintotica delle soluzioni di questo modello a quelle del classico. Nella seconda estensione ci occupiamo di incorporare una variabile per la corrente di adattazione. In primo luogo, studiamo la dinamica di quest’ultima variabile sola, analizzando la regolarità della soluzione stazionaria in dipendenza dai parametri e studiando il comportamento asintotico tramite i differenti metodi dell’entropia relativa con argomento di compattezza e metodo integrale. Indaghiamo poi la dinamica del modello bidimensionale tramite delle simulazioni numeriche e lo confrontiamo con un’equazione di Fokker-Planck similare con diffusione parziale e nonlinearità. Alcune simulazioni numeriche accompagnano lo studio di ogni modello analizzato, permettendo così di supportarne o anticiparne i risultati teorici

Sara Payson Willis Eldredge Farrington Parton, more famously known as the elusive Fanny Fern, employs three autobiographical personae mediated by fiction in her debut novel, Ruth Hall: (1) Ruth Hall, the novel's protagonist; (2) Floy, the fictional Ruth's pseudonym; and (3) Fanny Fern, Parton's real-life pseudonym and the name under which Ruth Hall was published. Together these personae assert a fragmented presence that incorporates various voices and lives, allowing for exploration, growth, and interactivity.Philippe Lejeune's autobiographical contract outlines three specific guidelines for autobiography—that it be a narrative, that it explore personal history, and that it link author and protagonist. Ruth Hall participates in two-thirds of Lejeune's contract, though Parton's conscious fictionalization demands a revisiting of the autobiographical contract, revealing the impossibility of recording truth as well as the impracticality of a unitary self.Through her use of autobiographical personae in Ruth Hall and in her personal life, Parton succeeds in rewriting the narrative of domesticity for the nineteenth-century American woman. Her self-conceptualization embraces multiplicity as she demands to be seen as "more than."

Uppsatsen behandlar Sven-Harrys (Konstmuseum) utifrån ett poststrukturalistiskt perspektiv, där institutionens olika delar ställs i relation till varandra samt förankras i dess olika samhälleliga kontexter och ursprung. Institutionen Sven-Harrys jämförs med en organism, i syftet att förklara dessa relationer. Resultatet av undersökningen visar att Sven-Harrys verksamhet huvudsakligen syftar till att upplösa gränserna mellan konsten och bostaden genom att kombinera olika verksamheter som sammanknyter dessa.

This dissertation analyses the survival strategies that wealthy people in Mexico City have designed and implemented to protect themselves from kidnapping with special focus on household employment relationships. This particular crime has demonstrated a particular evolution in the last 20 years that deserves analysis. Once a political crime, it became an economic crime that at first only targeted wealthy individuals and then over time began targeting working class victims. Based on extensive qualitative fieldwork in Mexico City which included a year in the field, 78 interviews with employers, employees, kidnapping victims and members of the police forces and justice system and the creation of a news reports database this thesis presents a detailed history of the evolution of kidnapping in the period 1968-2009. This is followed by an in depth analysis of the strategies elites use to protect themselves from this crime. Special attention is focused on the hiring process of household employees, namely drivers, as evidence suggests that most kidnappings are organized or facilitated in some way by a close collaborator of the victim. The hiring process is approached as a problem of trust. Signaling theory is the main framework used for the solving of this problem, as well as some ideas found in transaction cost economics, namely vertical integration. The results point towards strategic behavior from the actors involved that seeks to minimize the risk of being kidnapped for the employer. Signaling helps us uncover the specific mechanisms by which employer establish their prospective employees’ trustworthiness. The use of informal social networks made up of strong ties is one of the most salient mechanisms used to guarantee honest employees and this, together with a composite set of properties is signaled throughout. This thesis contributes to the literature on crime in Latin America as well as to the sociological literature on signaling, a branch of analytical sociology.

This thesis starts from the observation that, while it is common for commentators to divide postmodern fiction into two general fields – one experimental and anti-mimetic, the other cautiously mimetic, there remains a fairly significant field of postmodern texts that use largely mimetic approaches but represent worlds that are categorically distinct from actuality. This third group is even more pronounced if popular culture and “commercial” fiction, in particular sf and fantasy, are taken into account. Additionally, the third category has the interesting characteristic that the texts within this group very often generate unusual loyalty among its fans. Based on a renewed investigation of the main genre critics in postmodern fiction, the first chapter suggests a tripartite division of postmodern fiction, into formalist, metamimetic, and transreferetial texts. These are provisionally circumscribed by their reference worlds: formalist fiction attempts to derail its own capacity for presenting a world; metamimetic fiction presents mediated versions of worlds closely reminiscent of actuality; and transreferential fiction sets its narrative in worlds that are experienced as such, but are clearly distinct from actuality. If transreferential fiction deals with alternate worlds, it also very often relies on the reader’s immersion in the fictional world to provide unique, often subversive, fictional experiences. This process can be identified as the exploration of the fictional world, and it is very often guided so as to be experienced as a virtual reality of sorts. If transreferential texts are experienced as interactive in this sense, it is likely that they convey experiences and insights in ways different from either of the other two strands of postmodern fiction. In order to investigate the interactive experience provided by these texts, an extended conceptual and analytical set is proposed, rooted primarily in Ricoeurian hermeutics and possible-worlds theory. These two main theoretical approaches approximately correspond to the temporal and the spatial dimensions of texts, respectively. Much of the power of these texts rooted in the care they take to guide the reader through their fictional worlds and the experiences offered by the narrative, often at the hand of fictioninternal ‘guides’. These theoretical approaches are supplement by sf theoretical research and by Aleid Fokkema’s study of postmodern character. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 apply the theoretical toolset to three paradigmatic transreferential texts: sf New Wave author M John Harrison’s Viriconium sequence; Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy; and Jeff Noon’s Vurt and Pollen, texts that have much in common with cyberpunk but which make much more extensive use of formalist techniques. Each chapter has a slightly different main focus, matching the text in question, respectively: aesthetic parameters and worldcreation strategies of transreferential fiction; close “guidance” of the reader and extrapolation; and virtual reality and identity games. The final chapter presents the findings from the research conducted in the initial study. The findings stem from the central insight that transreferential texts deploy a powerful suit of mimetic strategies to maximise immersion, but simultaneously introduce a variety of interactive strategies. Transreferential fiction balances immersion against interactivity, often by selectively maximising the mimesis of some elements while allowing others to be presented through formalist strategies, which requires a reading mode that is simultaneously immersive and open to challenging propositions. A significant implication of this for critical studies – both literary and sf – is that the Barthesian formalist reading model is insufficient to deal with transreferential texts. Rather, texts like these demand a layered reading approach which facilitates immersion on a first reading and supplements it critically on a second. The final chapter further considers how widely and in what forms the themes and strategies found in the preceding chapters recur in other texts from the proposed transreferential supergenre, including sf, magic realist and limitpostmodernist texts.
Thesis (PhD (English))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

This thesis explores the psycho-socio-cultural dynamics that surrounded black womanhood in antebellumGeorgia. The goal is twofold: first, to examine how slave narratives, testimonies, and interviews depicted the plight of enslaved black women through a womanist lens and second, to discover what political and socio-cultural constructions enabled the severe slave institution that was endemic toGeorgia. Womanist theory, psychoanalytic theory, and trauma theory are addressed in this study to focus on antebellum or pre-Civil WarGeorgia.

A stochastic operator is a positive linear contraction, P : L1 --+ L1, such that llPfII2 = llfll1 for f > 0. It is called asymptotically stable if the iterates pn f of each density converge in the norm to a fixed density. Pf(x) = f K(x,y)f(y)dy, where K( ·, y) is a density, defines a stochastic kernel operator. A general probabilistic/ deterministic model for biological systems is considered. This leads to the LMT operator P f(x) = Jo - Bx H(Q(>.(x)) - Q(y)) dy, where -H'(x) = h(x) is a density. Several particular examples of cell cycle models are examined. An operator overlaps supports iffor all densities f,g, pn f APng of 0 for some n. If the operator is partially kernel, has a positive invariant density and overlaps supports, it is asymptotically stable. It is found that if h( x) > 0 for x ~ xo ~ 0 and ["'" x"h(x) dx < liminf(Q(A(x))" - Q(x)") for a E (0, 1] lo x-oo then P is asymptotically stable, and an opposite condition implies P is sweeping. Many known results for cell cycle models follow from this.
Mathematical Science
M. Sc. (Mathematics)

This dissertation explores the importance of the panorama for American Renaissance writers' participation in ideological formations in the antebellum period. I analyze how Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, William Wells Brown, Henry Box Brown, and Harriet Beecher Stowe use the panorama as a metaphorical site to contest their different positions on epistemological and sociopolitical agendas such as transcendentalism, masculinist expansionism, and radical abolitionism. Emerson uses the panorama as a key metaphor to underpin his transcendental idealism and situate it in contemporary debates on vision, gender, and race. Connecting the panorama with optical theories on light and color, Emerson appropriates them to theorize his transcendental optics and makes a hierarchical distinction between light/transparency/panorama as metaphors for spirit, masculinity, and race-neutral man versus color/opacity/myopic vision for body, femininity, and racial-colored skin. In his paean to the moving panorama, Thoreau expresses his desire for Emersonian correspondence between nature and the spirit through transcendental panoramic vision. However, Thoreau's esteem for nature's materiality causes his panoramic vision to be corporeal and empirical in its deviation from the decorporealized vision in Emerson?s notion of transparent eyeball. Hawthorne repudiates the Transcendentalists' and social reformers' totalizing and absolutist idealism through his critique of the panorama and the emphasis on opacity and ambiguity of the human mind and vision. Hawthorne reveals how the panorama satisfies the desire for visual and physical control over the rapidly expanding world and the fantasy of access to truth. Countering the dominant convention of the Mississippi panorama that objectifies slaves as a spectacle for romantic tourism, Box Brown and Wells Brown open up a new American subgenre of the moving panorama, the anti-slavery panorama. They reconstruct black masculinity by verbally and visually representing real-life stories of some male fugitive slaves and idealizing them as masculine heroes of the anti-slavery movement. In Uncle Tom's Cabin, Stowe criticizes how the favorable representation of slavery and the objectification of slaves in the Mississippi panorama and the picturesque help to construct her northern readers' uncompassionate and hard-hearted attitudes toward the cruel realities of slavery and presents Tom's sympathetic and humanized "eyes" as an alternative vision.

Contemporary Canadian prairie women poets write about the mother figure to counter maternal suppression and the homogenization of maternal representations in literature. Critics, like Marianne Hirsch and Andrea O’Reilly, insist that mothers tell their own stories, yet many mothers are unable to. Daughter and mother stories, Jo Malin argues, overlap. The mother “becomes a subject, or rather an ‘intersubject’” in the text (2). Literary depictions of daughter-mother or mother-child intersubjectivities, however, are not confined to auto/biographical or fictional narratives. As a genre and potential site for representing maternal subjectivities, poetry continues to reside on the margins of motherhood studies and literary criticism. In the following chapters, I examine the writing strategies of selected poets and their representations of mothers specific to three transformative occasions: mourning mother-loss, becoming a mother, and reclaiming a maternal lineage. Several daughter-poets adapt the elegy to remember their deceased mothers and to maintain a connection with them. In accord with Tanis MacDonald and Priscila Uppal, these poets resist closure and interrogate the past. Moreover, they counter maternal absence and preserve her subjectivity in their texts. Similarly, a number of mother-poets begin constructing their mother-child (self-other) relationship prior to childbirth. Drawing on Lisa Guenther’s notions of “birth as a gift of the feminine other” and welcoming the stranger (49), as well as Emily Jeremiah’s link between “‘maternal’ mutuality” and writing and reading practices (“Trouble” 13), I investigate poetic strategies for negotiating and engaging with the “other,” the unborn/newborn and the reader. Other poets explore and interweave bits of stories, memories, dreams and inklings into their own motherlines, an identification with their matrilineage. Poetic discourse(s) reveal the limits of language, but also attest to the benefits of extra-linguistic qualities that poetry provides. The poets I study here make room for the interplay of language and what lies beyond language, engaging the reader and augmenting perceptions of the maternal subject. They offer new ways of signifying maternal subjectivities and relationships, and therefore contribute to the ongoing research into the ever-changing relations among maternal and cultural ideologies, mothering and feminisms, and regional women’s literatures.
May 2016

The United Kingdom is imprinted in our historical memory as the birthplace of modern democracy, the rule of law and respect to private ownership. However, this memory reflects deep history of the 19th century rather than the present state of affairs. The English like other developed nations have acquired the policy of state interventions, nationalization of private enterprise for a compensation, fight against the economic cycle in an unprecedented consensus. Many of the contemporaries assess England through the prism of Margaret Thatcher, however, as demonstrated in this work, her right-winged policy proved an exception to the Conservative Party's rule. Historiography ascribes the reasons of the situation especially to the Labour Party. A number of history works limits the causality of the state growth to the onset of the Laborites. It is apparent, however, that the search for the reasons of the state of affairs needs to quest much deeper in history. Despite its name, the Liberal Party is an institution with a long tradition of state-positive thinking. It was the new Radical Liberals who arrived with a "ransom" theory as well as the program of urban socialism, which does not seem to be a symptom of the laissez faire era in the today's regulated world of private waterworks, gas and electric power...