This dissertation suggests that burgeoning public discourse on contraception in Britain and the United States between 1915 and 1940 created a paradigm shift in perceptions of women’s sexuality that altered the ways that women could be represented in literary texts. It offers readings of texts by women on both sides of the Atlantic who responded to birth control discourse not only by referencing contraceptive techniques, but also by incorporating arguments and dilemmas used by birth control advocates into their writing. The introductory chapter, which frames the later literary analysis chapters, examines similarities in the tropes Margaret Sanger and Marie Stopes, the British and American “Mothers of Birth Control” used in their advocacy. These include images such as mothers dying in childbirth, younger children in large families weakened by their mothers’ ill-health, and sexual dysfunction in traditional marriages. In addition to this chapter on birth control advocates’ texts, the dissertation includes four chapters meant to demonstrate how literary authors used and adapted the tropes and language of the birth control movement to their own narratives and perspectives. The first of these chapters focuses on Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland, a 1915 political allegory about a nation populated only by women who have gained the ability to reproduce asexually. Gilman adopted pro-birth control language, but rejected the politically radical ideas of the early birth control movement. In addition to radical politics, the birth control movement was associated with racist eugenicist ideas, an association that the third chapter, on Nella Larsen’s 1928 novel Quicksand examines in detail by comparing birth control and African-American racial uplift rhetoric. Crossing the Atlantic, the fourth chapter looks at the influence of the English birth control movement on Irish novelist Kate O’Brien’s 1931 Without My Cloak, a novel that challenges Catholic narratives as well as the heteronormative assumptions of birth control discourse itself. The final chapter analyzes Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and Three Guineas (1938), illuminating Woolf’s connections between feminist reproductive politics and conservative pro-eugenics agendas. Acknowledging the complexity of these writers’ engagements with the birth control movement, the project explores not simply the effects of the movement’s discourse on writers’ depictions of sexuality, reproduction, and race, but also the dialogue between literary writers and the birth control establishment, which comprises a previously overlooked part of the formation of both the reproductive rights movement and the Modernist political project.

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Cette thèse démontre expérimentalement à l'échelle du laboratoire la détection et la localisation, en transmission, d'une cible de taille de la longueur d'onde. La configuration expérimentale correspond à un guide d'ondes ultrasonique limité par deux réseaux émetteur-récepteur. Deux réseaux coplanaires enregistrent dans le domaine temporel la matrice de transfert du guide d'ondes entre chaque couple émetteur-récepteur. En invoquant le principe de réciprocité, un algorithme de Double Formation de Voies est simultanément exécuté sur les réseaux émetteur et récepteur. Ce traitement d'antennes permet de projeter les échos acoustiques plusieurs fois réverbérés en un ensemble de rayons acoustiques, qui sont définis par angles leurs angles d'émission et de réception. La comparaison réalisée entre l'amplitude de chaque rayons acoustique avec et sans cible dans le guide d'onde permet, par effet d'ombre, de détecter de la cible. La localisation est réalisée à travers la résolution d'un problème inverse en utilisant les rayons acoustiques extraits de la double formation de voies. L'utilisation de noyau de sensibilité utilisant le phénomène de diffraction pour chaque rayon acoustique fournit la localisation et une signature de la cible. Des résultats expérimentaux sont présentés en présence de vagues en surface. L'utilisation de l'effet Larsen dans la cadre de la barrière acoustique est également envisagée pour son extrême sensibilité aux variations du milieu.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Lehigh University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 222-230).

Esta dissertação apresenta uma leitura do romance Passing, com o foco na caracterização e enredo a partir da perspectiva de duas questões inter-relacionadas. Primeiro, a leitura examina a questão da maternidade e a questão da raça na caracterização de duas protagonistas, considerando que ambas as questões sustentam uma importância histórica no contexto de vida das mulheres negras daquele período, como os biógrafos de autores testemunham. Segundo, a leitura enfatiza as correlações de enredo e desejo como uma forma de entender o que está em jogo na narrativa. O romance foi publicado em 1929 pela escritora Afro-Americana Nella Larsen durante o movimento estético e cultural chamado Harlem Renaissance, um movimento cujo apogeu na década de 20 do século passado causou um crescimento da consciência social e o surgimento da literatura moderna Afro-Americana. Em uma década, o tema ‘passing’ constituiu um dos tópicos privilegiados em vários romances por escritores Afro-Americanos. Minha análise se sustenta a partir de diferentes fontes: relações entre mãe/filha a partir de Marianne Hirsch e Nancy J. Chodorow; a questão da raça e conflitos de ‘passing’ a partir de Thadious M. Davis, Elaine K. Ginsberg e Martha J. Cutter, assim como enredo e desejo de Peter Brooks. Na interligação de elementos biográficos, psicológicos, culturais e literários, minha leitura apresenta como a novela dramatiza o conflito insolúvel de raça divida – branca e preta – que destaca as lutas e dificuldades dos personagens quando enfrentando o vazio do pertencimento que acompanha a experiência de ‘passing’. / The thesis presents a reading of the novel Passing, with a focus on characterization and plot from the perspective of two interrelated issues. First, the reading examines the question of motherhood and the question of race in the characterization of the two major female protagonists, considering that both questions bear historical importance in the context of black women’s lives of the period, as the author’s biographers testify. Second, the reading highlights the connections of plot and desire as a way of understanding what is at stake in the narrative design. The novel was published in 1929 by the Afro-American writer Nella Larsen during the cultural and aesthetic movement called the Harlem Renaissance, a movement whose heyday in the 20´s in the last century brought about the uplifting of racial consciousness and the emergence of modern Afro-American literature. In the decade, the theme of ‘passing’ constituted one of the privileged topics in several novels by Afro-American writers. My analysis draws support from different sources: mother/daughter relationships from Marianne Hirsch and Nancy J. Chodorow; the question of race and ensuing conflicts of ‘passing’ from Thadious M. Davis, Elaine K. Ginsberg and Martha J. Cutter; and plot and desire from Peter Brooks. In the interweaving of biographical, psychological, cultural and literary elements, my reading shows how the novel dramatizes the insoluble conflict of the racial divide – white and black - which underlies the characters´ struggles and difficulties when facing the void in belongingness that attends the experience of passing.

Esta dissertação apresenta uma leitura do romance Passing, com o foco na caracterização e enredo a partir da perspectiva de duas questões inter-relacionadas. Primeiro, a leitura examina a questão da maternidade e a questão da raça na caracterização de duas protagonistas, considerando que ambas as questões sustentam uma importância histórica no contexto de vida das mulheres negras daquele período, como os biógrafos de autores testemunham. Segundo, a leitura enfatiza as correlações de enredo e desejo como uma forma de entender o que está em jogo na narrativa. O romance foi publicado em 1929 pela escritora Afro-Americana Nella Larsen durante o movimento estético e cultural chamado Harlem Renaissance, um movimento cujo apogeu na década de 20 do século passado causou um crescimento da consciência social e o surgimento da literatura moderna Afro-Americana. Em uma década, o tema ‘passing’ constituiu um dos tópicos privilegiados em vários romances por escritores Afro-Americanos. Minha análise se sustenta a partir de diferentes fontes: relações entre mãe/filha a partir de Marianne Hirsch e Nancy J. Chodorow; a questão da raça e conflitos de ‘passing’ a partir de Thadious M. Davis, Elaine K. Ginsberg e Martha J. Cutter, assim como enredo e desejo de Peter Brooks. Na interligação de elementos biográficos, psicológicos, culturais e literários, minha leitura apresenta como a novela dramatiza o conflito insolúvel de raça divida – branca e preta – que destaca as lutas e dificuldades dos personagens quando enfrentando o vazio do pertencimento que acompanha a experiência de ‘passing’. / The thesis presents a reading of the novel Passing, with a focus on characterization and plot from the perspective of two interrelated issues. First, the reading examines the question of motherhood and the question of race in the characterization of the two major female protagonists, considering that both questions bear historical importance in the context of black women’s lives of the period, as the author’s biographers testify. Second, the reading highlights the connections of plot and desire as a way of understanding what is at stake in the narrative design. The novel was published in 1929 by the Afro-American writer Nella Larsen during the cultural and aesthetic movement called the Harlem Renaissance, a movement whose heyday in the 20´s in the last century brought about the uplifting of racial consciousness and the emergence of modern Afro-American literature. In the decade, the theme of ‘passing’ constituted one of the privileged topics in several novels by Afro-American writers. My analysis draws support from different sources: mother/daughter relationships from Marianne Hirsch and Nancy J. Chodorow; the question of race and ensuing conflicts of ‘passing’ from Thadious M. Davis, Elaine K. Ginsberg and Martha J. Cutter; and plot and desire from Peter Brooks. In the interweaving of biographical, psychological, cultural and literary elements, my reading shows how the novel dramatizes the insoluble conflict of the racial divide – white and black - which underlies the characters´ struggles and difficulties when facing the void in belongingness that attends the experience of passing.

Cette thèse démontre expérimentalement à l'échelle du laboratoire la détection et la localisation, en transmission, d'une cible de taille de la longueur d'onde. La configuration expérimentale correspond à un guide d'ondes ultrasonique limité par deux réseaux émetteur-récepteur. Deux réseaux coplanaires enregistrent dans le domaine temporel la matrice de transfert du guide d'ondes entre chaque couple émetteur-récepteur. En invoquant le principe de réciprocité, un algorithme de Double Formation de Voies est simultanément exécuté sur les réseaux émetteur et récepteur. Ce traitement d'antennes permet de projeter les échos acoustiques plusieurs fois réverbérés en un ensemble de rayons acoustiques, qui sont définis par angles leurs angles d'émission et de réception. La comparaison réalisée entre l'amplitude de chaque rayons acoustique avec et sans cible dans le guide d'onde permet, par effet d'ombre, de détecter de la cible. La localisation est réalisée à travers la résolution d'un problème inverse en utilisant les rayons acoustiques extraits de la double formation de voies. L'utilisation de noyau de sensibilité utilisant le phénomène de diffraction pour chaque rayon acoustique fournit la localisation et une signature de la cible. Des résultats expérimentaux sont présentés en présence de vagues en surface. L'utilisation de l'effet Larsen dans la cadre de la barrière acoustique est également envisagée pour son extrême sensibilité aux variations du milieu. / This thesis demonstrates experimentally at the laboratory scale the detection and localization, in transmission, of a wavelength-sized target in a shallow ultrasonic waveguide between two source-receiver arrays in the framework of the acoustic barrier problem. Two coplanar arrays record in the time-domain the transfer matrix of the waveguide between each pair of source-receiver transducers. Invoking the reciprocity principle, a time-domain double-beam-forming algorithm is simultaneously performed on the source and receiver arrays. This array processing projects the multireverberated acoustic echoes into an equivalent set of eigenray, which are defined by their launch and arrival angles. Comparison is made between the amplitude of each eigenray without and with a target for detection in the waveguide. Localization is performed though inversion problem using all of the eigenrays extracted from double beamforming. The use of the diffraction-based sensitivity kernel for each eigenray provides both the localization and the signature of the target. Experimental results are shown in the presence of surface waves. The use of the acoustical feedback in frame of the acoustic barrier problem is also considered, for its extreme sensibility to medium variation.

This thesis presents new models for determining piezoresistive response in long, thin polysilicon beams with either axial and bending moment inducing loads or torsional loads. Microelectromechanical (MEMS) test devices and calibration methods for finding the piezoresistive coefficients are also presented for both loading conditions. For axial and bending moment inducing loads, if the piezoresistive coefficients are known, the Improved Piezoresistive Flexure Model (IPFM) is used to find the new resistance of a beam under stress. The IPFM first discretizes the beam into small volumes represented by resistors. The stress that each of these volumes experiences is calculated, and the stress is used to change the resistance of the representative resistors according to a second-order piezoresistive equation. Once the resistance change in each resistor is calculated, they are combined in parallel and series to find the resistance change of the entire beam. If the piezoresitive coefficients are not initially known, data are first collected from a test device. Piezoresistive coefficients need to be estimated and the IPFM is run for the test device's different stress states giving resistance predictions. Optimization is done until changing the piezoresistive coefficients provides model predictions that accurately match experimental data. These piezoresistive coefficients can then be used to design and optimize other piezoresistive devices. A sensor is optimized using this method and is found to increase voltage response by an estimated 10 times. For torsional loads, the test device consists of a slider-crank connected to two torsional legs. The slider-crank creates torsional stress in the legs which causes a change in the electrical resistance through the legs. A model that predicts the effects of a scissor hinge on the slider-crank is presented. Torsional stresses in the legs are calculated delete{using the membrane analogy.} and the legs are discretized into long parallel resistors and the stresses delete{from the membrane analogy} applied to each resistor. Assuming a second-order piezoresistance, an optimization is then done to find the piezoresistive coefficients by changing them until the model prediction fits the test data. These coefficients can be used to predict angular displacement from resistance measurements in fully integrated torsional sensors. Potential applications are discussed, and a torsional accelerometer is presented.

No description available.

The heart is one the most important organs in the human body and many other live creatures. The electrical activity in the heart controls the heart function, and many heart diseases are linked to the abnormalities in the electrical activity in the heart. Mathematical equations and computer simulation can be used to model the electrical activity in the heart. The heart models are challenging to solve because of the complexity of the models and the huge size of the problems. Several cell models have been proposed to model the electrical activity in a single heart cell. These models must be coupled with a heart model to model the electrical activity in the entire heart. The bidomain model is a popular model to simulate the propagation of electricity in myocardial tissue. It is a continuum-based model consisting of non-linear ordinary differential equations (ODEs) describing the electrical activity at the cellular scale and a system of partial differential equations (PDEs) describing propagation of electricity at the tissue scale. Because of this multi-scale, ODE/PDE structure of the model, splitting methods that treat the ODEs and PDEs in separate steps are natural candidates as numerical methods. First, we need to solve the problem at the cellular scale using ODE solvers. One of the most popular methods to solve the ODEs is known as the Rush-Larsen (RL) method. Its popularity stems from its improved stability over integrators such as the forward Euler (FE) method along with its easy implementation. The RL method partitions the ODEs into two sets: one for the gating variables, which are treated by an exponential integrator, and another for the remaining equations, which are treated by the FE method. The success of the RL method can be understood in terms of its relatively good stability when treating the gating variables. However, this feature would not be expected to be of benefit on cell models for which the stiffness is not captured by the gating equations. We demonstrate that this is indeed the case on a number of stiff cell models. We further propose a new partitioned method based on the combination of a first-order generalization of the RL method with the FE method. This new method leads to simulations of stiff cell models that are often one or two orders of magnitude faster than the original RL method. After solving the ODEs, we need to use bidomain solvers to solve the bidomain model. Two well-known, first-order time-integration methods for solving the bidomain model are the semi-implicit method and the Godunov operator-splitting method. Both methods decouple the numerical procedure at the cellular scale from that at the tissue scale but in slightly different ways. The methods are analyzed in terms of their accuracy, and their relative performance is compared on one-, two-, and three-dimensional test cases. As suggested by the analysis, the test cases show that the Godunov method is significantly faster than the semi-implicit method for the same level of accuracy, specifically, between 5 and 15 times in the cases presented. Second-order bidomain solvers can generally be expected to be more effective than first-order bidomain solvers under normal accuracy requirements. However, the simplest and the most commonly applied second-order method for the PDE step, the Crank-Nicolson (CN) method, may generate unphysical oscillations. We investigate the performance of a two-stage, L-stable singly diagonally implicit Runge-Kutta method for solving the PDEs of the bidomain model and present a stability analysis. Numerical experiments show that the enhanced stability property of this method leads to more physically realistic numerical simulations compared to both the CN and Backward Euler (BE) methods.