In the field of literary modernism, value has been assigned most often to texts that display a certain kind of innovation: aggressive, destructive, and difficult. Other, quieter texts have been relegated to the periphery of the modernist canon. This dissertation, contributing to the work of the New Modernist Studies, argues for an expansion of how critics define innovation and, by extension, modernism. Through close reading and thorough analysis of critical reception, I explore a <“>restrained<”> modernism in the stories and novels of E.M. Forster, Nella Larsen, and Elizabeth Bowen, demonstrating how their innovation proceeds from and depends on their performance of clarity and their deconstruction of traditional forms from within. These three authors strategically deploy familiar traditions like the female bildungsroman, social satire, and the tragic mulatta tale in order to explore the queer agency of restrained subjectivities trapped inside. Forster, Larsen, and Bowen defy critical accusations of timidity, conservativism, and failure, critiquing the totalizing identity categories of nation, race, sexuality, and gender and suggesting the quiet yet radical power of a literary--and modernist--restraint.

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Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Economics, 1981 / Vita. / Includes bibliographies. / by David Knudsen Levine. / Ph. D. / Ph. D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Economics

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For women of reproductive age, automobile crashes are the leading cause of death worldwide. It has been estimated that 40,000 women in the second half of pregnancy are involved in motor-vehicle crashes each year. It has been estimated that between 300 to 3800 will experience a fetal loss. Placental abruption has been shown to account for 50% to 70% of fetal losses in motor vehicle crashes. While there is a growing database of medical case studies and retrospective studies describing the outcome of motor vehicle accidents involving pregnant occupants, as well as the effect of seatbelts on fetal survival, previous research has not produced a tool for engineers to use to improve the safety of a pregnant occupant in a motor vehicle. The goal of this project was to develop a model that can quantify the stresses and strains on the uterus of a pregnant woman in order to predict the risk of injury. A finite element uterine model of a 7-month pregnant female was created and integrated into a multi-body human model. Unrestrained, 3-pt belt, and 3-pt belt plus airbag tests were simulated at speeds ranging from 13 kph to 55 kph. Peak uterine strain was found to be a good predictor of fetal outcome. The uterine strain sufficient to cause placental abruption was seen in simulations known to have greater than 75% risk of adverse fetal outcome. Head injury criteria (HIC) and viscous criterion (V*C) were examined as a check of overall occupant protection. The 3-pt belt plus airbag restraint provided the greatest amount of protection to the mother. The model proved successful at predicting risk of fetal demise from placental abruption and verified experimental findings noting the importance of proper restraint use for the pregnant occupant. / Master of Science

This research study is conducted on one bay-one story non-sway frames where the effects of the rotational restraint and slenderness ratio on the post-buckling strength of the axially restraint column under thermal load are studied. Geometric non-linear analysis of the structures is performed using a research program based on the beam-column theory. A total 32 models are created considering two different bottom end conditions: fixed and hinged, slenderness ratios: 50 and 125, and the beam to column length ratios: 0.5,1,1.5 and 2, to account for the variation in the rotational restraint. All models are subjected to thermal loads and numerical results are obtained to study the post-buckling behavior of the columns of the frames under thermal loads.

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The research of this thesis was performed to understand the vibrational dynamics of stage 0&1 child safety seats and of the children who occupy them. Since no previous vibration data for small children or child seats was found, the investigation took the form of experiments designed to shed light on the behaviour of the system consisting of child, child seat, vehicle safety belt and vehicle seat. To provide a background for interpreting the results a literature review was performed of child seat characteristics, of human whole-body response and of primate whole-body response. An industrial test procedure for measuring the vibration isolation properties of vehicular seats is also presented as an illustration of the concepts involved. A whole-body vibration bench for testing children in the vertical direction was built and apparent mass and absorbed power functions were measured for 8 children of age less than 24 months and mass less than 13 kg. An algorithm was developed for identifying the parameter values of a single degree of freedom mass-spring-damper model of the seated body using Differential Evolution optimisation. The parameter values were determined for each child and compared to those of adults and primates. This thesis also presents the results of modal testing of 2 child seat units and of operational deflection shape testing of 1 unit in an automobile under 3 loading conditions (empty, sandbag or child). In-vehicle transmissibility measurements were also performed in the vertical direction for 10 children and child seats using 9 automobiles. The floor-to-human transmissibilities were determined for each child and driver when passing over a reference road surface at both 20 and 40 km/h. Except for the damping ratio, all child mechanical response parameters were found to differ with respect to those of adults or primates, with the differences being greater with respect to adults. The first resonance frequency of children was found to be located at 8.5 Hz as opposed to 4.0 Hz for adults, raising questions regarding the applicability of standards such as ISO 2631 towards the evaluation of child vibrational comfort. The child seats were found to have higher transmissibilities on average than the vehicular seats occupied by adults. A characteristic low frequency rigid body rocking motion was noted at 1.8 Hz as were multiple flexible body resonances starting from frequencies as low as 15 Hz. Areas of possible improvement and topics for further research have been identified.