CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / This work aims to analyze the impact of education, measured as average years of schooling mean, and educational inequality on poverty reduction and promotion of economic growth to Northeast states in the period 1995-2008. In order to meet these objectives, three econometric models are applied: 1) a panel model such that income of poor is the dependent variable; 2)a multinomial model with panel data that used Kakwani-Pernia index as dependent variable and 3) an ordered multinomial model, considering three earning thresholds for indigents, poors and nonpoors based upon poverty lines. According to PNAD data, excepting the Census of 2000, the results allow to conclude that: i) average schooling plays an important role to explain the pro-poor growth in Northeast, ii) educational inequality has a substantial impact on poverty reduction and pro-poor growth. / Este trabalho tem o objetivo de analisar o impacto da educaÃÃo, medida atravÃs da escolaridade media e desigualdade educacional, na reduÃÃo da pobreza e na geraÃÃo de crescimento econÃmico do Nordeste no perÃodo 1995â 2008. Para tanto, sÃo utilizados trÃs modelos economÃtricos: 1)Dados em painel tomando como variÃvel dependente a renda dos pobres; 2) Multinomial com dados em painel tendo como variÃvel dependente o Ãndice de Kakwani-Pernia; 3)Multinomial ordenado considerando trÃs nÃveis de renda que delimitam os indigentes, pobres e nÃo-pobres. Com base em dados da PNAD e excetuando o Censo de 2000, os resultados dos trÃs modelos permitiram extrair os seguintes principais pontos conclusivos: i) a escolaridade mÃdia à um fator preponderante para a explicaÃÃo do crescimento prÃ-pobre no Nordeste, ii) a desigualdade educacional surge como um elemento importante para a explicaÃÃo tanto da pobreza como da presenÃa de crescimento prÃ-pobre.

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This thesis takes a new approach to Domenico Tiepolo’s (1727-1804), Divertimento Per li Regazzi (c.1795-1804), it is arguably the artists most enigmatic graphic work, which features the commedia dell’arte character Pulcinella. The drawings have hitherto been subject to rigorous connoisseurial analysis. Indeed, in his introduction to ten of the drawings in a catalogue of Italian Eighteenth-Century Drawings in The Robert Lehman Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, James Byam Shaw states that this particular series of drawings has now become so famous ‘that it is hardly necessary to add to the literature of the series.’1 In my opinion it would be a great pity if future generations of scholars were discouraged by this remark, for I believe the drawings still have much to ‘tell’ the contemporary art historian and would further benefit from increasingly interpretative readings. Previously, scholars have regarded Domenico Tiepolo as an imitator of his father, Giambattista Tiepolo (1696-1770), and interpreted the re-appropriation of motifs in the Divertimento as signs of old age and fatigue. I suggest, on the contrary, that in this series of drawings in particular, Domenico was an innovator. This project carves out new territories within the study of the series in that it focuses on the playful nature of the drawings, and how the suite can be understood in relation to contemporary theory concerning games and play, and ludic musical/improvisatory forms. Additionally, the drawings are discussed as a case history in a now popular emerging dialectic on the late works of aged artists: here I consider how these drawings, often funny, poignant, sensitive and delicate reveal how the elderly painter reconciles himself not only to the passing of his own life and the extinction of his family line but to an entire political, cultural and visual tradition.

The practice-led research was concerned with the development of the combination of high relief prints and the creation of different shades of printmaking inks through heat. The research was in the proportion of 60% practice and 40% theory. To locate this research within contemporary practice, the study began with the literature review and consideration was given to the work of artists, who use heat in their work. The literature review also investigated embossed patterns and relief techniques including the work of artists who produce imagery through pronounced relief. Existing colour systems were reviewed and these assisted a framework for correlating the colour samples that were modified through the application of heat to printing ink. This review demonstrated that there was no compelling evidence to suggest that artists had seriously taken into account the connection between heat, colour and relief pattern. Studio research consisted of a series of studies that explored the potential of heat and its facility to change the effect of printmaking inks. In this research, temperature, variation and duration were all recorded. Research also examined the ability of heat to relax and release paper fibres under pressure thereby achieving extremes of positive and negative relief, as well as embossed and textured surfaces. This was done by exploring different methods of pressing paper under heat to form and print a variety of high relief, involving concave and convex forms. The research also examined punctured paper, tears, and embossed holes and examined how the fragmentation of paper fibres could be enhanced through heat. The research culminated in the making of a series of full scale prints that demonstrate the use of heat and its ability to enable high relief prints and subtle changes of colour. The research concluded with an examination exhibition and a written dissertation.

acase@tulane.edu / Stress is a major determinant of quality of life and chronic stress plays an important contributing role in the occurrence of psychiatric and physiological pathologies. Ascending brainstem noradrenergic afferents provide a critical excitatory drive to the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis in response to stress by activating corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) neurons in the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus (PVN). The stimulatory role of noradrenergic synapses on CRH neurons in the regulation of the HPA axis has long been known, but the cellular mechanisms have been perplexing. We demonstrate a retrograde inter-neuronal communication stimulated by norepinephrine that utilizes a trans-astroglial signaling mechanism to activate upstream neurons and recurrent synaptic inputs. We found that NE activates postsynaptic 1-adrenoceptors in PVN CRH neurons, which triggers a calcium response in astrocytes via the dendritic release of vasopressin. Activated astrocytes stimulate upstream glutamate neurons via ATP release and P2X receptor activation, resulting in the recurrent excitation of the CRH neurons. The NE excitation of CRH neurons is strengthened by simultaneous presynaptic 2-adrenoceptor-mediated suppression of GABA release but is restrained at higher NE concentrations by activation of upstream GABAergic neurons via the same postsynaptic α1-adrenoceptor-mediated retrograde neuronal-glial signaling mechanism. Thus, the NE stimulation of CRH neurons in the PVN is mediated by a novel retrograde signaling mechanism that enlists a trans-neuronal-astroglial circuit to activate upstream glutamate and GABA neurons. This mechanism is stress-sensitive. Acute stress desensitizes this α1-receptor mediated circuit via glucocorticoid receptor-dependent signaling. The desensitization of the excitatory circuit, through which NE exerts its major stimulatory drive to CRH neurons, indicates a cellular mechanism or a target site of negative feedback. Chronic stress desensitized the CRH neurons to both α1 and α2-adrenoceptor activation. Thus, the noradrenergic regulation of CRH neurons was lost entirely following chronic stress, rendering the CRH neurons completely insensitive to this major regulatory input. Our research revealed the cellular mechanisms of the NE regulation of CRH neurons under control, acute stress and chronic stress conditions. It fills an important gap in knowledge concerning the noradrenergic excitatory drive to the CRH neurons and the stress-induced glucocorticoid feedback control of the HPA axis. / 1 / Chun Chen

The aim of this thesis is to offer a re-evaluation of our cultural assumptions concerning the monstrous in the work of Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes (1746- 1828), specifically his collection of etchings Los Caprichos (1799). In my study there are three closely related areas of investigation: the image of the monstrous body in Goya's work; the cultural aspects of monsters and monstrous forms in Western discourses and in the Spanish Enlightenment; and the theoretical encounter between the history of the sciences and deconstructive criticism. The interaction between these three areas provides a background against which to understand the Goyaesque body within the context of Spanish cultural practices. Through an examination of eighteenth-century Spanish reformist absolutism, this thesis explores the contradictions, limits, or insufficiencies of the Spanish Ilustraciön in order to establish the ideological, cultural and artistic context out of which Los Caprichos emerged. One of the central issues that runs through my study is to establish how far, and in what ways, Los Caprichos can be seen as an Enlightenment work. Traditional readings of Los Caprichos have paid very little critical attention to the monstrous human bodies depicted in the collection in the context of eighteenth century discourses on monstrosity and corporeality. Los Caprichos invite a more complex, multifaceted consideration both of the body and the monster, of corporeality and monstrosity. By focusing on the Goyaesque body, the aim of this thesis is to open up a series of questions on the ways in which the monstrous body can be thought of in the critique of culture. This study therefore seeks to provide a cultural history of the monstrous body in the art of Goya, showing how his pictorial representations in the collection of etchings Los Caprichos offer a critique of reason and problematize the perception and treatment of (European and Spanish) Enlightenment configurations of the body. It is my contention that Los Caprichos can be read in Enlightenment ways yet there are elements of an ideological, cultural and artistic nature that problematize such credentials, pointing to the limits and contradictions of the Spanish Enlightenment itself.

The thesis is concerned with the exploration of cultural identity in the north-east of England. Superficially that exploration invites an ethnographic approach based on the detailing of socio-cultural relationships which have developed from a unique experience within the region as defined by its industrial past which receives specific expression politically through its long-term loyalty to the Labour Party a devotion unparalleled in twentieth-century England. The examination begins by considering the region's lack of response to the 1981 riots and the local press' celebration of the same. It moves on to consider the deeply-felt sense of peripherality found in the northeast in relation to the 'rest of the country'. That peripherality, marked by comparison with national socio-economic standards is examined in its most potent ethnographic context Beamish Museum. What emerges in these considerations is the importance of examining experiential data as a means of evaluating the singularity of north-eastern cultural identity. Experiential data in the form of archival material, the testimony of a 'traditional' working-class whose experiences provided the constituency for Labour politics, is the key evidence offered here. As a framework for evaluating the substantive content of this evidence, the values and beliefs of the English cultural system are delineated. A primary source for these values is identified as the 'local' press - whose ideological stance it is shown is derived less from the specifics of a north-eastern locality than its role as propagator of national values. In the thesis, two areas which are held to have a local specificity are considered industry and community. These two find their most exemplary expression in the term 'industrial community' which is the real and imagined context from which popular conceptions of 'north-easternness' spring. A third area for consideration is the region's relationship with the English imperial system. This system lacks any conceptualizations which could produce a local specificity. What is of interest is that it exemplifies the frame of reference for evaluating north-eastern particularity the comparison between region and nation. It is the involvement in and the response to this system which is crucial. Overall, this thesis examines firstly the ideology which governs the ordering and interpretation of the north-eastern experience since the industrialization of the nineteenth-century. How did the people of the region interpret these transformations and changes? Secondly, the purpose is to delineate the webs of significance from which determine these experiences. Are they 'home grown' or externally-derived by way of the material structure established a century ago and dismantled since? This is achieved by utilizing Anderson's concept of the 'imagined community' to suggest that as an English region, the north-east claims simultaneous membership in two communities one regional, the other national. It is the weight given to the latter which is in the end determinant. The conclusion being that the region's stability in the 1981 riots is founded on its adherence to the ideology which sprang from an older England that of the nineteenth-century industrial/imperial nation.

The development of the ports of the North-East was a direct consequence of the region's increasing coal production; existing ports were expanded and new facilities created. Improvement required capital and it became necessary to form commissions to administer the ports, subsuming the powers of individuals and companies. Through them the greatest and most beneficial developments took place. Of an engineering nature, improvements involved rail transport, trans-shipment facilities, the building of docks and breakwaters, and river deepening and straightening. The advice of the nation's most eminent engineers was acted upon and, through the works undertaken, coal shipments f rom the North-East increased from 3 to 35 million tons per annum over the century which began in 1815. Certain ports were over-capitalised, others starved of funds, but by 1914 all competed on equal terms. Based on throughput, all exhibited similar capital expenditure and annual revenue. Development was not uniform but, generally, capital expenditure resulted in increased coal throughput and revenue. Docks were built as necessary, their costs comparable with those of other U. K. ports. Their value was marginal although two of them were so efficient that they were equalled in unit throughput only by Cardiff, the principal port of the analagous South Wales coalfield. Mining, railways and ports were inter-dependent, collieries owning staiths and several railways themselves operating docks. In 1865 the ports came to experience the virtual territorial monopoly of the North Eastern Railway, its financial power unrivalled. Itself operating docks, it came to determine the strategy of coal shipments. This thesis explores the evolution of the ports and their railways, the contribution made by the engineering profession to the development of both, the formation of the region's port authorities and the relationships which existed within and without the governing bodies.

Since the 1980s and 1990s, cultural commodities produced in both Britain and Japan have enjoyed an upsurge in global popularity, giving rise to notions of “Creative Britain” and “Cool Japan.” As a result of this boom, British and Japanese governments have attempted to develop and/or collaborate with both domestic and foreign cultural industries as a solution to national economic decline. This turn to culture as a means of generating economic revenue is part of a global trend where neoliberal economic ideas converge with the rise of a “creative economy.” This thesis argues that the image of Victorian Britain in Japanese shōjo manga, as well as in British neo-Victorian fiction, suggests that the history of free trade and British imperialism in East Asia in the nineteenth century underpins this increasing emphasis on cultural commodity production and export in Britain and Japan. In other words, British and Japanese neo-Victorian texts published in the period 1980-present demonstrate that what we call “globalisation” today is deeply informed by economic relations and cultural hierarchies established between distant places in the nineteenth century. Recognising these connections between past and present helps us understand why the Japanese today “choose” to consume British “high” cultural goods, and why the Japanese state and cultural industries “choose” to focus their energies on exporting popular culture products. These “choices,” I argue, are historically conditioned by Japan’s encounter with the West, and especially Britain, in the nineteenth century, and the perception of British cultural superiority that this encounter has fostered. In examining the transnational networks that connect Britain and Japan in the nineteenth century and in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, this thesis uses a “global history” framework to expand existing approaches to neo-Victorianism, girl culture in Japan, and World Literature.

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