Although belief in ghosts or analogous concepts is prevalent cross-culturally, including in contemporary Western cultures, social scientific treatments of spirit belief and experience often dismiss such views as superstitious, or overlook this dimension of culture completely. Using mixed methods, we examine ghost belief, experience, and media consumption, as well as the practice of ‘ghost hunting’ in the United States. Results from a national survey demonstrate that these beliefs and practices are common and concentrated strongly among younger generations of Americans, especially moderately religious ‘dabblers.’ Fieldwork with multiple groups centered on ‘hunting’ ghosts reveals several notable themes, including rhetorical appeals to both science and religion, magical rites, the extensive use of technology to mediate evidence and experiences of ghosts, and the narrative construction of hauntings. We argue that the inherent liminality of spirits as cultural constructs accounts for their persistence, power, and continual recurrence.

The Victorians obsessed over the supernatural and this fascination with the otherworldly emerges in the literature of the day. With this thesis, I look at two nineteenth century novels that exhibit supernatural phenomena: Charlotte Brontë's Villette (1853) and Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights (1847). Both novels, I propose, utilize this aspect of the gothic tradition to enhance their characters' psychological realism. With Villette, I examine the supernatural as a fabricated experience. First, I study the protagonist's psyche and show how her emotional state directly contributes to the appearance of fantastic material. Specifically, I examine Lucy Snowe's childhood experiences in Bretton and then look at her continuing emotional isolation at the boarding school in Villette. I then illustrate how Lucy compensates for this loneliness by transforming the identities of her acquaintances and by often embellishing her own experiences. Following this, I examine her response to an external phenomenon, the ghostly nun. I argue that as Lucy discovers emotional fulfillment via her relationship with Paul Emanuel, she grows increasingly skeptical of the nun. This skepticism climaxes in a scene of violence, after which Lucy successfully denies the existence of the otherworldly. With Wuthering Heights, I examine the supernatural as a genuine phenomenon. To begin, I analyze two significant scenes which frame the main narrative: Lockwood's dream and Heathcliff's death. Both events, I subsequently demonstrate, are instances of supernatural interaction with the real world. Finally, I examine the spiritual and occult beliefs of the lovers, Catherine and Heathcliff. I then show how their ideology influences their decisions and, ultimately, brings about their reunion in the afterlife.

The works of Carlos Fuentes are well known for their thematics of History, how the past continues to influence the present despite mechanisms of historical omission, oblivion, or repression. This dissertation offers a spectral reading of a selection of Fuentes’ works—La muerte de Artemio Cruz (1962), Aura (1962), Cambio de piel (1967), Terra nostra (1975), and Una familia lejana (1980)—that represents his vision of Mexican, Latin American, and Transatlantic history. A spectral reading refers to the hidden or indirect ways that the past continues to manifest in the present as specters, ghosts—unconscious and unwitting remembrances of repressed or unknown material that elude conscious recollection but continue nonetheless to linger and impede healthy progress. Concepts from trauma theory and psychoanalysis thus provide a framework for this critical approach. Fuentes’ representations of history often comprise violent events that resonate as ghostly presences haunting contemporary society. Our reading makes use of concepts such as Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok’s “crypt” and “phantom” as well as Marianne Hirsch’s “postmemory” in order to show how historical traumas and violent events are transmitted across generations as a spectral inheritance. Through this theoretical lens, a spectral reading sheds new light upon Carlos Fuentes’ use of cyclical time, doubling, narrative experimentation, and intertextuality that function together to represent the effects of violent history as a spectral legacy on individual, family, national, regional, and global scales. The works studied in this dissertation’s six chapters represent distinct moments of Fuentes’ narrative production. Despite the works’ various forms of representation—realist, Gothic, modern, postmodern—, their common thread is the timeless burden of historical violence and trauma. Fuentes presents a pessimistic vision of the ways in which contemporary society ineffectively bears or disavows this burden. The works thus show a possibility for embracing the Other and engaging in the task of working through trauma, although this potential reconciliation remains constantly thwarted. History, according to Fuentes, remains trapped in a purgatory of violence. Yet the hope can be gleaned, however, that the reader may take up this healing labor. While full reconciliation continues to elude us, engagement with the ghosts of the past is a healthy first step.

MOTIVATION In the simplest form, a pencil mark on a page is removed by a traditional rubber eraser. However, the marks are often never fully removed, and the paper thins with each attempt to rub out an old idea. But how does one erase a chair? A pilaster? A room? A building?... More importantly, how does the subtractive act of erasing become an additive one? The historical fabric of a building is important; it is also imperative that it does not remain stagnant. Erasing is an opportunity to design an interior environment that both acknowledges the traces of the pencil marks and the eraser. It is an opportunity to learn from historic design strategies and thoughtfully transition into the present to create a living, breathing palimpsest (Plesch, 2015). PROBLEM Current preservation policies and landmarking tactics arguably contradict preservationists’ claims of promoting environmental, economic, and social growth within communities by exempting historical buildings from complying with codes and regulations which consequently use property that could be more sustainably employed. Historical preservation is largely based in social constructs; therefore, present policies should be reflective of societal changes. At times, the act of preserving often removes these buildings from the possibility of a relevant and functional future by attempting to keep them wedged within historical restraints (Avrami, 2016). METHOD Research of precedent incidents of erasure with applications to concepts involving historical preservation and restoration in the fields interior design and architecture will influence the design approach. These precedent studies will include works by Carlo Scarpa, Peter Zumthor, and David Chipperfield. To supplement these studies, other artistic disciplines and artists, including Robert Rauschenberg, will be researched to holistically comprehend approaches to the concept of erasing. The execution of explorations of erasing different objects and media to better understand the process of erasure will also be imperative. These experimentations will include the strategic erasing of pencil sketches and common objects to investigate how to best represent an object that has been erased. PRELIMINARY RESULTS The approach to erasing the historical fabric of a building is largely dependent on the building itself. This is evident in Scarpa’s attention to the physical and metaphorical joinery of new and existing structures in his design of Palazzo Abatellis, Zumthor’s weaving of old and new brickwork at Kolumba, and Chipperfield’s use of exposed ruins in his design strategy for the Neues Museum (McCarter, 2013; Carrington, 2008; RYKWERT, 2009). The process of erasure within the realm of preservation is a constant and demonstrates how the act of erasing allows opportunities for the existence of something new (Katz, 2006). CONCLUSION Choosing to re-program and systematically erase a section of a historically significant but outdated medical tower as a collective art studio space would introduce the opportunity to design an “erased space “as an environment for post-graduate art students to produce creative work. This space would strengthen the growing bond between a school of the arts and a historic medical school while contributing to the culture of the surrounding neighborhoods and contribute to the rich tradition of art within the city.

No description available.

The three key steps of modern seismic imaging are (1) multiple attenuation, (2) velocity estimation, and (3) migration. The multiple-attenuation step is essentially designed to remove the energy that has bounces at the free surface (also known as "multiples"), since velocity estimation and migration assume that data contain only primaries (i.e., seismic events that have reflected or diffracted only once in the subsurface and have no free-surface reflection). The second step consists of estimating the velocity model such that the migration step can be solved as a linear inverse problem. This thesis concerns the multiple attenuation of towed-streamer data. We have proposed a new method for attenuating multiples and discussed how this method affects velocity estimation and migration. The multiple-attenuation approach used today in the E&P industry is based on the scattering theory. It is carried out in two steps: (1) the prediction of multiples using data only, and (2) the subtraction of multiples contained in the data using predicted multiples. One of the interesting features of these multiple-attenuation methods is that they do not require any knowledge of the subsurface. However there are still two drawbacks that limit the usage of these methods. They are (1) the requirement of acquiring very large 3D datasets which are beyond the capability of current seismic acquisition technology, and (2) the requirement of acquiring near-offset (including zero-offset) data. The method developed in this thesis can potentially overcome these two problems. The novelty of our approach here is to image receiver ghosts of primaries--events which have one bounce in the subsurface and one bounce at the free-surface that is also the last bounce--instead of primaries themselves. We propose to predict two wavefields instead of a single wavefield, as is presently done. One wavefield contains all free-surface reflections, including receiver ghosts of primaries, ghosts of multiples, and multiples. The other wavefield does not contain receiver ghosts of primaries. We pose the problem of reconstructing receiver ghosts of primaries as solving a system of two equations with three unknowns. The two wavefields are used to construct the two equations. The three unknowns are (1) the receiver ghosts of primaries, (2) the multiples contained in the wavefield containing the receiver ghosts of primaries, and (3) the multiples contained in the other wavefield. We solve this underdetermined system by taking advantage of the fact that seismic data are sparse. We have validated our approach using data generated by finite-difference modeling (FDM), which is by far the most accurate modeling tool for seismic data. Starting with a simple 1D model, we verified the effectiveness of predicting data containing multiples and receiver ghosts of primaries. Then we used the sparsity of seismic data to turn the system of two equations with three unknowns into a system of two equations with two unknowns on a datapoint basis. We have also validated our method for complex geological models. The results show that this method is effective, irrespective of the geology. These examples also confirm that our method is not affected by missing near-offset data and does not require special seismic 3D acquisition.

Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) is a pestilent infection affecting upwards of 90 million people worldwide. An efficacious vaccine is needed to control the morbidities and rising healthcare cost associated with genital CT infection. We have established that protection against chlamydia infection parallels with a high frequency of T helper Type 1 cells and the associated antibodies. The current study focuses on the induction of innate immune responses involved during Chlamydia infection by a Vibrio cholera ghost-based (VCG) vaccine vector. THP-1 cells were used for dose and kinetic experiments. HeLa cells were used for infectivity assays. Based on preliminary studies, we hypothesized that the induction of immune responses by a VCG-based vaccine involves multiple innate immune signaling. Multiplex assay was used to measure T helper Type I and Type II cytokine secretion by THP-1 monocytes (Mn) or macrophages (Mϕ). Immunostimulatory cytokine secretion was significant when both cell morphologies were pulsed with VCG or VCG/murine splenocytes. We concluded that this secretion was significant enough to compliment that which would be secreted when THP-1 cells are pulsed with Chlamydia elementary bodies alone, enhancing the innate immune response during infection. Cellular supernatants (conditioned media) containing Th1-type and Th2-type cytokines were used to culture Chlamydia-infected HeLa cell monolayers. Infected HeLa monolayers cultured in the conditioned media were significantly less infected (968 IFUs) versus HeLa monolayers cultured in Earle’s minimum essential media (16,486 IFUs; p<0.001). We concluded that factors contained in conditioned media prevent and/or significantly reduce infection by Chlamydia and the development of inclusion forming units.

No description available.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

'Hungry Ghosts' is an account of thirty-six hours of a young woman's life following her arrival in Singapore. Sarah, the protagonist of the novel, is accompanying her partner Paul on a business conference. It is increasingly apparent that Sarah's motives for leaving her home town, Adelaide, have more to do with her need to escape than her commitment to Paul. A room in an international hotel offers Sarah the comforts of a cocoon, where signs of previous occupation and ties to the past are erased on a daily basis. But Sarah is obviously dislocated from her surroundings, which are in turn out of step with the external environment: the air-conditioning is freezing; the orchids are plastic and nod in an artificial breeze. In this sterile environment Sarah is troubled by flashbacks of what she has left behind. Sarah begins to emerge from her cocoon, venturing into a big city that, for her, could be anywhere. She recognizes places generic to big cities as well as a few unique landmarks, becoming aware of the continual and universal tensions of progress and the past. In this way the novel becomes a study of the role of memory, ghosts and the absent dead, all of which play a part in informing Sarah's present and her understanding of the future. At the hotel Sarah encounters a group of war ‘pilgrims'. A mother, her son Bradley and an elderly British Army Major are all on a 'pilgrimage', and, in their different ways, all trying to make peace with the past and its insatiable ghosts. As Sarah learns their stories and witnesses the battles they wage, she is forced to challenge her own beliefs about being able to leave traumatic events behind. Her absent mother haunts her on the sun-drenched streets of fast-moving Singapore. A bond begins to form between herself and Bradley who, like Sarah, has been left out-of-whack by a recent calamity. 'Hungry Ghosts' explores several dualities: the claims of the past, both cultural and personal, balanced against the demands of the future; private memories that must be reconciled with the demands of public living and progress; the world of the mind that is dependent on the physical body occupying 'real' space. The novel examines the strangely transitory spaces that people can find themselves in: the liminal areas of grief, travel, dislocation, the unfamiliar. It asks why, in an age of globalisation, the claims of place, and in particular of home, remain so strong. My exegesis, written as three essays, addresses three aspects of my manuscript, ‘Hungry Ghosts’. In the first essay I look at the importance of ‘place’ in my novel, and the different types of ‘places’ I explore. In the second essay I look at how contemporary theories on war commemoration, coupled with my own research and witnessing of ‘actual’ events, have informed my depiction and treatment of the theme of war memory. In my final essay I reflect on the role mourning has played in the development of my manuscript, considering both the challenges it has presented to my narrative and the ways in which it has strengthened it. / Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, 2009