This study is an examination of the several themes and conventions of science fiction that seem to appear in the texts of Samuel Beckett. Expectedly, many of the texts produced by both science fiction and Beckett just before, during, and immediately after World War II share similar concerns; though perhaps less expectedly, these two relatively unlike bodies of work can be used to help better understand and illuminate one another. In Waiting for Godot, nuclear anxieties shed light on the play's apparent post-apocalyptic landscape and the profound emptiness that permeates the stage. In Molloy, Hugh Kenner uses Centaur imagery to explain the title character's Cartesian relationship with his bicycle; however, contemporary sensibilities at the time of the novel's publication suggests a cyborg reading of the Molloy/bicycle hybrid can also be productive. And in Krapp's Last Tape, the tape recorder serves as a figurative time machine, which allows readers to consider the ways technology continues to allow for the capture of time and subsequent reflection. / by Aaron Pancho. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

The work examines and compares personal values, behavioural patterns, personal motivation and career choices of six individuals from the Velvet Revolution period using interviews obtained by the oral-historical method. The main aim is to answer the question where people who helped transform one regime into another had come from and how they coped with tasks they could not have been prepared for in advance. In late 1989, the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia collapsed. One way of running the society was quickly replaced by another, but the society did not collapse, and life went pretty smoothly on. All of a sudden, many opportunities opened up as well as many responsibilities to generations of people who could not have been prepared to take either of them. Yet at least some of them did so. How did they manage? Keywords Czechoslovak society 1989-1992, career decision-making, Velvet revolution of 1989, network of social acquaintances, transformation of society

La presente tesis tiene como objetivo analizar las razones que llevaron a un grupo de jóvenes limeños varones, en la década de los ochenta, a tocar metal, tanto en la variante de heavy metal tradicional como en la extrema, a la vez que busca explicar de qué manera las circunstancias de la realidad nacional, tanto económicas como sociales y políticas, influyeron en la constitución de dicho género musical como escena. Para ello, parto de dos hipótesis. Por un lado, en un contexto de globalización y desestructuración, estos jóvenes encuentran, en la oscuridad, pesadez y potencia del metal, un espacio en el que construir lazos sociales entre pares y afianzar estructuras paralelas de autonomía y poder. Por otro lado, la formación de la escena metalera se da primero en una etapa (1983-1985) de convivencia entre las bandas de metal y las de otros subgéneros del rock; y luego, en una segunda etapa (1986-1989), esta adquiere carácter independiente y se perfila en dos vertientes: una que busca la profesionalización, que eventualmente pierde terreno ante la crisis económica, y otra underground, que lograr sortear la crisis a partir de sus propios códigos, los cuales marcan el futuro de la escena. Con el fin de poner a prueba dichas hipótesis, realicé entrevistas a participantes de la escena de la época, consulté diversos periódicos, revistas y fanzines, además de fuentes secundarias. Además de confirmar las hipótesis de investigación, esta tesis muestra, primero, que los códigos musicales (en este caso del metal) influyeron en la realidad de los jóvenes que adoptaron dicho género como seña identitaria; y, segundo, que las particularidades de la escena metalera limeña respondieron a eventos y tendencias sociales, políticas y económicas propias de la realidad peruana. / Tesis

M.A. (History) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

M.A. (Political Science) / This study was done in an attempt to ascertain the nature, extent and development of the support given to the South African political system by Chief Minister Gatsha Buthelezi of KwaZulu. The decision to measure Buthelezi 's support of the system was taken because Buthelezi is one of the most prominent Black South African political leaders with general support of members of the political system. Therefore his support can be considered relevant to the functioning of the political system ...

Robert Penn Warren, historian, short story writer, teacher, critic, poet, and novelist, has received favorable attention from literary critics as well as the general reading public. This attention is merited, in part, by Warren's narrative skill and by his use of imagery. A study of his novels reveals that his narrative technique and his imagery are closely related to his interest in myth.

Degree awarded with distinction on 11 December 1997 'n Verhandeling ingelewer ter voldoening aan die vereistes vir die graad Magister Artium in die Departement van Afrikaans en Nederlands by die Universiteit van die Witwatersrand. Johannesburg, 1997 / This dissertation investigates the canonized criticism on Etienne Leroux's Sewe dee by die S'ilbersteins (1962) from the time of the novel's publication up to the 1980's. The most important analytical strategies that were implemented in this period become, in themselves, the topic of research. The study at hand claims that the allegorical structure of the novel, wi th its subsequent distinction between surface and substructure leads to irreconcilable re&dfngs. The critics either link the view of life presented b~ the novel to a limited number of imtedded fields of reference, or they present all of these fields without questioning any conflicting claims to truth. In this dissertation the novel is approached from an existentialist perspective from which all claims to truth are relativised, and the focus shifts to the narrative itself. This reading strategy departs to a large extent from existing approaches that concentrate on the substructure.

Nesta dissertação realiza-se um estudo dos procedimentos destinados a eliminação de estados redundantes em máquinas de estados finitos incompletamente especificadas. Um algoritmo para realizar a codificação de estados nestas máquinas é proposto. Situações de ocorrências de perigos estático são identificadas. Um sistema destinado ao projeto automático de circuitos sequenciais síncronos é proposto e implementado com uma interface confortável ao usuário onde são integrados os algoritmos para minimização e codificação de estados, geração de equações de excitação dos registradores e minimização lógica.

Problemas em Scheduling estocástico do tipo flow-shop no-wait pertencentes à classe NP-completo são tratados neste trabalho em duas abordagens distintas. Na primeira, quando as realizações das variáveis aleatórias que descrevem os tempos de processamento das operações ocorrem "a priori", é apresentado um estudo do comportamento de heurísticas através de métodos estatísticos. Na segunda, quando as realizações das variáveis aleatórias ocorrem durante o processamento, é desenvolvido um estudo analítico da relação entre a probabilidade de um Schedule estocástico satisfazer a condição flow-shop no-wait e o intervalo de tempo decorrido entre duas tarefas adjacentes.

This dissertation examines how Latin American diplomacy helped shape U.S. officials’ response to revolutionary movements at the height of the Cold War. It explains the striking contrast between U.S. patronage of the Bolivian revolution and the profound antagonism with similar leftist nationalist movements in Cuba and Guatemala. Although U.S. policymakers worried that “Communists” were infiltrating the Bolivian Government, Bolivian diplomats convinced the Eisenhower administration to support their revolution. The dissertation demonstrates that even during the peak of McCarthyism, U.S. policymakers' vision extended far beyond Cold War dogmatism. This vision incorporated a subtle, if ultimately contradictory, appreciation of the power of nationalism, a wish to promote developmental liberalism, and a desire for hemispheric hegemony regardless of strategic and ideological competition with the Soviet Union. U.S. officials were eager to exploit the emerging force of third world nationalism and employ it to strengthen the “inter-American system.” The Bolivian revolutionaries presented their political project as copacetic to Washington’s wider regional goals, and thus managed to secure considerable freedom of movement to continue to pursue a radical revolutionary agenda and statist program of development, financed and enabled by hundreds of millions in U.S. aid dollars.