This master's thesis describes Semantic Enrichment Component (SEC), that searches entities (e.g., persons or places) in the input text document and returns information about them. The goals of this component are to create a single interface for named entity recognition tools, to enable parallel document processing, to save memory while using the knowledge base, and to speed up access to its content. To achieve these goals, the output of the named entity recognition tools in the text was specified, the tool for storing the preprocessed knowledge base into the shared memory was implemented, and the client-server scheme was used to create the component.

Apesar de altamente estável, o DNA sofre milhares de alterações em sua estrutura diariamente, sejam essas espontâneas ou pela exposição a agentes mutagênicos. A maior parte dessas alterações é prontamente removida por um conjunto de eventos de reparo de DNA. A via de reparo por excisão de nucleotídeos (NER) é a mais versátil e flexível lidando com uma variedade de lesões que podem gerar distorções das hélices do DNA. Esses danos resultam em alterações características que, caso não reparadas, podem gerar mutações ou morte celular e, consequentemente, câncer e envelhecimento. Algumas síndromes, nas quais os pacientes são sensíveis à luz solar, estão relacionadas à deficiência no processo de NER, como a Xeroderma Pigmentosum (XP), síndrome de Cockayne (CS) e Tricotiodistrofia (TTD). Indivíduos brasileiros, incluindo pacientes com diagnóstico clínico de XP e membros das famílias, passaram por um processo in silico para a identificação variantes em genes relacionados aos processos de reparo do DNA após o sequenciamento do DNA por plataformas de nova geração (NGS: plataforma ABI 5500XL SOLiD e MiSeq Illumina) e análises de Bioinformática. Para cada paciente, foram selecionados os melhores valores de parâmetros para se realizar a busca por variantes considerando a qualidade de alinhamento e a taxa de cobertura das bases alvo. SNPs já depositados no banco de dados do projeto 1000genomes foram removidos de nossos dados. O restante das variantes foi analisado para encontrar potenciais candidatos que poderiam explicar o diagnóstico clínico do paciente. Em muitas amostras foi possível determinar pelo menos uma variante (mutação) com uma elevada possibilidade de ser responsável pelos sintomas XP. Para alguns pacientes, a má qualidade do sequenciamento ou eventos não esclarecidos durante este, dificultou a identificação de candidatos à mutação patogênica. Potenciais mutações não sinônimas foram analisadas com os programas SIFT e PROVEAN, que identificaram a potencial capacidade deletéria da alteração de aminoácido na proteína. Finalmente, foi desenvolvida uma interface de domínio público amigável, a Human Variantes do Finder Interface (http://www.varfinderhg.com.br), que visa facilitar a identificação de variantes em dados gerados por NGS. / Although highly stable, DNA molecule undergoes thousands of damage in its structure every day, due to spontaneous lesions or exposure to various mutagens. Most of these lesions are readily removed by a number of cellular DNA repair processes. The process of nucleotide excision repair (NER) is the most versatile and flexible dealing with a variety of lesions that can lead to distortions of the DNA strands. Ultraviolet irradiation induced DNA damage are the main substrates for NER. These DNA damage, if not repaired, can generate mutations or cell death causing several diseases, including cancer and aging. Some syndromes, sensitive to sunlight, are related to deficiencies in the NER process, such as Xeroderma Pigmentosum (XP), Cockayne syndrome (CS) and Trichothiodystrophy (TTD). Brazilian individuals, including patients with clinical diagnosis of XP and family members, went through in silico process for the identification of variants in genes related to DNA repair processes after DNA sequencing by next generation sequencing (NGS in the platforms ABI 5500XL SOLiD and MiSeq Illumina) and dedicated Bioinformatics pipelines. For each patient the best search pattern of variant calling was used considering the alignment quality and coverage rate of bases in target. SNPs already deposited at the 1000genomes project database were removed from the data. The remaining variants were analyzed to find potential candidates that could explain the clinical diagnosis. In many samples, it was possible to determine at least one variant (mutation) with a high possibility of being responsible for the clinical XP. For some patients, the poor quality of the sequencing or unclear events during sequencing hampered the identification of clear mutation candidates. Potential nonsynonymous mutations were analyzed with SIFT and PROVEAN softwares, which identified the potential deleterious capacity of the amino acid change in the protein. Finally, we developed a user-friendly public domain interface, the Human Variants Finder Interface (http://www.varfinderhg.com.br), which, we expect, will facilitate the identification of variants in data generated by NGS.

ESKOM is moving towards a price structure for electricity which reflects, as far as possible, the real cost of generation. It is called real time pricing (RTP). ESKOM developed this cost structure to coax customers to use more electricity in off-peak periods (low cost of generation) and less electricity in peak periods (high cost of generation). However, many industries do not effectively use these price offerings from ESKOM to the detriment of themselves and ESKOM. In previous research improvements to this situation for the South African mining industry were investigated. ESKOM funded research to find the potential for load shifting on mines using RTP. The RTP investigation focused on the supply side management (SSM) in the mining context of underground services on gold and platinum mines. Elements investigated included the ventilation, cooling and pumping (VCP) systems. (Except for pumps, these plants are generally installed aboveground.) Previous research showed a national RTP and SSM potential to shift 500 MW of electrical load for a period of 5 hours. Through the previous research it became clear that the mines were previously able to react partially to the price signals. However, it was proved by the research that the full load shift potential can only be realised through the use of integrated dynamic simulation and optimisation. An even higher potential exists for load shift and electricity efficiency through demand side management (DSM) on the underground services. Therefore, if underground DSM strategies are combined with SSM strategies, a further and much bigger potential can be exploited to the benefit of ESKOM and the mines. Due to these factors this study was undertaken. Three case study mines were identified for this study. They are Kopanang and Target, both gold mines, and Amandelbult, a platinum mine. The DSM potential on each of these mines was calculated using simulation, calibration, verification and optimisation. These results were presented to mine management to negotiate the implementation of the proposed strategies on one of the mines. Kopanang's management agreed to the implementation of these strategies for a trial period of 3 months after which the success would be evaluated. The results of the implementation, together with the case study results, were used to calculate the national DSM potential in the mining sector through extrapolation. The DSM potential amounts to 650 MW of load per day as well as 5% on electricity consumption. This amounts to a potential saving of R72.1 million per year using current tariffs. This means that ESKOM can save about R5000 million on the building of a new power station to supply the equivalent load to the DSM potential. Now that the national impact has been calculated and discussed, all these findings must be used to motivate the implementation of these strategies throughout the mining sector. A similar project can be undertaken to look at possible DSM strategies in the industrial sector. This might prove to be more difficult as the electricity intensive systems are mostly all linked to the final production. In the mind of management this out-weighs the possible cost savings that can be achieved. ESKOM and the NER will have to rethink their strategy. Through DSM and load shifting actions alone the pending electricity crisis will not be averted. The current tariff structures should be amended to not only reflect the true cost of electricity but also provide incentive for DSM and load shifting. Another problem that must be addressed to achieve the DSM targets set for 2007 is the time that it takes to complete the study as well as the implementation time. Software can easily be created to help in the speeding up of the case study itself, as the process and steps followed, as well as models used, are very generic (at least in the gold and platinum mining sector). / Thesis (Ph.D. (Mechanical Engineering))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2004.

ESKOM is moving towards a price structure for electricity which reflects, as far as possible, the real cost of generation. It is called real time pricing (RTP). ESKOM developed this cost structure to coax customers to use more electricity in off-peak periods (low cost of generation) and less electricity in peak periods (high cost of generation). However, many industries do not effectively use these price offerings from ESKOM to the detriment of themselves and ESKOM. In previous research improvements to this situation for the South African mining industry were investigated. ESKOM funded research to find the potential for load shifting on mines using RTP. The RTP investigation focused on the supply side management (SSM) in the mining context of underground services on gold and platinum mines. Elements investigated included the ventilation, cooling and pumping (VCP) systems. (Except for pumps, these plants are generally installed aboveground.) Previous research showed a national RTP and SSM potential to shift 500 MW of electrical load for a period of 5 hours. Through the previous research it became clear that the mines were previously able to react partially to the price signals. However, it was proved by the research that the full load shift potential can only be realised through the use of integrated dynamic simulation and optimisation. An even higher potential exists for load shift and electricity efficiency through demand side management (DSM) on the underground services. Therefore, if underground DSM strategies are combined with SSM strategies, a further and much bigger potential can be exploited to the benefit of ESKOM and the mines. Due to these factors this study was undertaken. Three case study mines were identified for this study. They are Kopanang and Target, both gold mines, and Amandelbult, a platinum mine. The DSM potential on each of these mines was calculated using simulation, calibration, verification and optimisation. These results were presented to mine management to negotiate the implementation of the proposed strategies on one of the mines. Kopanang's management agreed to the implementation of these strategies for a trial period of 3 months after which the success would be evaluated. The results of the implementation, together with the case study results, were used to calculate the national DSM potential in the mining sector through extrapolation. The DSM potential amounts to 650 MW of load per day as well as 5% on electricity consumption. This amounts to a potential saving of R72.1 million per year using current tariffs. This means that ESKOM can save about R5000 million on the building of a new power station to supply the equivalent load to the DSM potential. Now that the national impact has been calculated and discussed, all these findings must be used to motivate the implementation of these strategies throughout the mining sector. A similar project can be undertaken to look at possible DSM strategies in the industrial sector. This might prove to be more difficult as the electricity intensive systems are mostly all linked to the final production. In the mind of management this out-weighs the possible cost savings that can be achieved. ESKOM and the NER will have to rethink their strategy. Through DSM and load shifting actions alone the pending electricity crisis will not be averted. The current tariff structures should be amended to not only reflect the true cost of electricity but also provide incentive for DSM and load shifting. Another problem that must be addressed to achieve the DSM targets set for 2007 is the time that it takes to complete the study as well as the implementation time. Software can easily be created to help in the speeding up of the case study itself, as the process and steps followed, as well as models used, are very generic (at least in the gold and platinum mining sector). / Thesis (Ph.D. (Mechanical Engineering))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2004.

Submitted by Automa??o e Estat?stica (sst@bczm.ufrn.br) on 2017-04-17T23:12:49Z No. of bitstreams: 1 AngelicaMariaDeSousaLeal_TESE.pdf: 6582579 bytes, checksum: 5f557c13b6008a7677f62167674670fe (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Arlan Eloi Leite Silva (eloihistoriador@yahoo.com.br) on 2017-04-20T22:14:08Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 AngelicaMariaDeSousaLeal_TESE.pdf: 6582579 bytes, checksum: 5f557c13b6008a7677f62167674670fe (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-04-20T22:14:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 AngelicaMariaDeSousaLeal_TESE.pdf: 6582579 bytes, checksum: 5f557c13b6008a7677f62167674670fe (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-09-29 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior (CAPES) / No contexto da resposta ao estresse oxidativo, o reparo por excis?o de bases (BER) ? considerado a principal via para o reparo de les?es oxidadas. Entretanto, estudos indicam o papel do reparo por excis?o de nucleot?deos (NER) na corre??o dessas les?es. Al?m disso, fatores do NER j? tiveram fun??es descritas em outros processos biol?gicos, sendo importante que se busque novas fun??es biol?gicas que possam ser associadas aos fen?tipos das s?ndromes causadas por muta??es nos genes da via NER, dentre elas a Xeroderma pigmentoso grupo de complementa??o A, associada a muta??es em XPA, al?m da s?ndrome de Cockayne, ocasionada por muta??es no gene CSB. Nesse contexto, c?lulas deficientes em XPA (XP12RO) ou CSB (CS1AN) foram submetidas ao estresse oxidativo com per?xido de hidrog?nio (H2O2) e apresentaram um perfil de sensibilidade ao agente, indicando que a aus?ncia dessas prote?nas sensibilizou as linhagens a essa condi??o. A an?lise do transcriptoma de c?lulas XP12RO indicou a diminui??o na express?o de genes com papel na resposta ao dano no DNA e que promovem a sobreviv?ncia celular em resposta ao estresse oxidativo. Nesse cen?rio, os resultados indicaram que XPA pode atuar na regula??o da express?o de genes essenciais ? resposta ao dano no DNA e na sobreviv?ncia ao estresse oxidativo (EGR1, GADD45A, GADD45B e XPC). Por outro lado, a an?lise do transcriptoma de c?lulas CS1AN indicaram a diminui??o na express?o de genes-chave nos processos biol?gicos como transcri??o, processamento de mRNA, prote?lise via ubiquitina-proteassoma ou respira??o celular, indicando um poss?vel papel central da prote?na CSB na regula??o desses processos, em resposta ao estresse oxidativo. Al?m disso, dado o fen?tipo de neurodegenera??o associada a s?ndrome de Cockayne, c?lulas progenitoras neurais (NPCs) e neur?nios derivados de c?lulas-tronco pluripotentes induzidas (iPSCs) deficientes em CSB foram utilizados como modelos de estudo de altera??es neuronais in vitro, de modo que os resultados indicaram que assim como observado nos fibroblastos, c?lulas NPCs deficientes em CSB tamb?m apresentaram sensibilidade a agentes oxidantes. Ainda, os resultados mostraram que assim como observado no transcriptoma de fibroblastos CS1AN, dada a diminui??o na express?o de genes com papel na respira??o celular, as an?lises do consumo de oxig?nio em neur?nios deficientes em CSB indicaram uma poss?vel disfun??o mitocondrial, caracterizada pelo decr?scimo na taxa de consumo de oxig?nio basal e pela diminui??o das capacidades respirat?rias m?xima ou de reserva dessas c?lulas, sugerindo o papel de CSB no metabolismo mitocondrial em ambos os modelos celulares utilizados neste estudo. / In oxidative stress response, the base excision repair (BER) is considered the major pathway for repair of oxidative lesions. However, an increasing number of studies have indicated the role of nucleotide excision (NER) in the repair of these lesions. In addition, some NER factors had functions beyond the role in repair already described and it is important to search for new molecular functions that can be associated to the classical phenotypes of the syndromes caused by mutations in NER genes: Xeroderma pigmentosum complementation group A, caused by mutations in XPA and Cockayne syndrome, caused by mutations in CSB. In this context, XPA (XP12RO) or CSB (CS1AN) deficient cells were submitted to oxidative stress induced by Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and the results indicated that both cell lines showed sensitivity to this agent. Furthermore, the transcriptome of XP12RO cells revealed the downregulation of genes that play a role in DNA damage response and promote cell survival in response to oxidative stress. In this scenario, the results indicated that XPA regulates the expression of genes that play a key role in DNA damage response and promote survival in response to stress (EGR1, GADD45A, GADD45B and XPC). On the other hand, the transcriptome analysis of CS1AN cells showed the downregulation of genes that play a key role in biological processes such as transcription, mRNA processing, protein degradation by the ubiquitin?proteasome pathway proteolysis or cellular respiration, indicating a possible role for CSB protein in the regulation of these processes, in response to oxidative stress. In adittion, given the neurodegeneration phenotype associated to Cockayne syndrome, neural progenitor cells (NPCs) and neurons derived from CSB deficient induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) were used as cellular models to analyse neuronal changes in vitro. The results showed that, as observed in fibroblasts CS1AN, NPCs also presented sensitivity to oxidizing agents. Furthermore, as indicated in the transcriptome data from CS1AN fibroblasts, given the downregulation of genes that play a pivotal role in cellular respiration, the analysis of oxygen consumption rates in CSB deficient neurons also indicated a mitochondrial dysfunction characterized by the decrease in oxygen consumption basal rate and a lower maximum respiratory and reserve capacities, suggesting that the lack of functional CSB leads to a mitochondrial dysfunction in both cellular models used in this study. / 2017-12-09

Apesar de altamente estável, o DNA sofre milhares de alterações em sua estrutura diariamente, sejam essas espontâneas ou pela exposição a agentes mutagênicos. A maior parte dessas alterações é prontamente removida por um conjunto de eventos de reparo de DNA. A via de reparo por excisão de nucleotídeos (NER) é a mais versátil e flexível lidando com uma variedade de lesões que podem gerar distorções das hélices do DNA. Esses danos resultam em alterações características que, caso não reparadas, podem gerar mutações ou morte celular e, consequentemente, câncer e envelhecimento. Algumas síndromes, nas quais os pacientes são sensíveis à luz solar, estão relacionadas à deficiência no processo de NER, como a Xeroderma Pigmentosum (XP), síndrome de Cockayne (CS) e Tricotiodistrofia (TTD). Indivíduos brasileiros, incluindo pacientes com diagnóstico clínico de XP e membros das famílias, passaram por um processo in silico para a identificação variantes em genes relacionados aos processos de reparo do DNA após o sequenciamento do DNA por plataformas de nova geração (NGS: plataforma ABI 5500XL SOLiD e MiSeq Illumina) e análises de Bioinformática. Para cada paciente, foram selecionados os melhores valores de parâmetros para se realizar a busca por variantes considerando a qualidade de alinhamento e a taxa de cobertura das bases alvo. SNPs já depositados no banco de dados do projeto 1000genomes foram removidos de nossos dados. O restante das variantes foi analisado para encontrar potenciais candidatos que poderiam explicar o diagnóstico clínico do paciente. Em muitas amostras foi possível determinar pelo menos uma variante (mutação) com uma elevada possibilidade de ser responsável pelos sintomas XP. Para alguns pacientes, a má qualidade do sequenciamento ou eventos não esclarecidos durante este, dificultou a identificação de candidatos à mutação patogênica. Potenciais mutações não sinônimas foram analisadas com os programas SIFT e PROVEAN, que identificaram a potencial capacidade deletéria da alteração de aminoácido na proteína. Finalmente, foi desenvolvida uma interface de domínio público amigável, a Human Variantes do Finder Interface (http://www.varfinderhg.com.br), que visa facilitar a identificação de variantes em dados gerados por NGS. / Although highly stable, DNA molecule undergoes thousands of damage in its structure every day, due to spontaneous lesions or exposure to various mutagens. Most of these lesions are readily removed by a number of cellular DNA repair processes. The process of nucleotide excision repair (NER) is the most versatile and flexible dealing with a variety of lesions that can lead to distortions of the DNA strands. Ultraviolet irradiation induced DNA damage are the main substrates for NER. These DNA damage, if not repaired, can generate mutations or cell death causing several diseases, including cancer and aging. Some syndromes, sensitive to sunlight, are related to deficiencies in the NER process, such as Xeroderma Pigmentosum (XP), Cockayne syndrome (CS) and Trichothiodystrophy (TTD). Brazilian individuals, including patients with clinical diagnosis of XP and family members, went through in silico process for the identification of variants in genes related to DNA repair processes after DNA sequencing by next generation sequencing (NGS in the platforms ABI 5500XL SOLiD and MiSeq Illumina) and dedicated Bioinformatics pipelines. For each patient the best search pattern of variant calling was used considering the alignment quality and coverage rate of bases in target. SNPs already deposited at the 1000genomes project database were removed from the data. The remaining variants were analyzed to find potential candidates that could explain the clinical diagnosis. In many samples, it was possible to determine at least one variant (mutation) with a high possibility of being responsible for the clinical XP. For some patients, the poor quality of the sequencing or unclear events during sequencing hampered the identification of clear mutation candidates. Potential nonsynonymous mutations were analyzed with SIFT and PROVEAN softwares, which identified the potential deleterious capacity of the amino acid change in the protein. Finally, we developed a user-friendly public domain interface, the Human Variants Finder Interface (http://www.varfinderhg.com.br), which, we expect, will facilitate the identification of variants in data generated by NGS.

Här är norr, här är Stockholm simmande palats och ruckel. Tomas Tranströmer: Inomhuset är oändligt ur För levande och döda (1989) Skeppsbron i Stockholm är ett stadsrum i förändring. I och med att Slussens ombyggnad står för dörren väntar en ny framtid platsen. Den äger en stor potential men upplevs idag som bortglömd och själlös. Trots sin historia som Sveriges främsta hamn och marknadsplats är det få som avsiktligen kommer hit. I mitt projekt har jag försökt att, med hjälp av Tranströmers poesi och tecknande av rummet, försökt finna platsens karaktär och själ, samt utifrån vad jag funnit addera nya program och rumssamband till platsen. Förslaget är en sekvens som gradvis behåller, skalar av och skippar befintliga tullhus. Mina huvudsyften har varit att tillgängliggöra, koppla samman samt inte minst att bereda plats för människan. Jag kommer för sällan fram till vattnet. Men nu är jag här, bland stora stenar med fridfulla ryggar. Stenar som långsamt vandrat baklänges upp ur vågorna Tomas Tranströmer: Långsam musik ur Klanger och spår (1966) / Here is the north, here is Stockholm swimming palaces and hovels. Tomas Tranströmer: Indoors is endless from For the Living and the Dead (1989) Skeppsbron is a Stockholm cityscape going through changes. With the refurbishment of Slussen in the works, a whole new future awaits the site. It is a place full of potential, but at the moment neglected and lacking character. The small number of people deliberately visiting Skeppsbron belies its historical importance as the main port and marketplace of Sweden. My project is an attempt to find the soul and essence of the place, using Tranströmers poetry and my own drawings as a starting point. Building on my findings I have added new programs and spatial connections to the site. The proposal includes a sequence gradually moving from conserving, to stripping down to altogether removing existing pavilions. My main aspirations have been improving accessibility, interconnecting and last but not least making way for people. I come down to the water too seldom. But here I am now, among large stones with peaceful backs. Stones which slowly migrated backwards up out of the waves. Tomas Tranströmer: Slow Music from Bells and Tracks (1966)

Structured Product Labels (SPLs), the package inserts that accompany drugs governed by the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA), hold information about Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs) that exists associated with drugs post-market. This information is valuable for actors working in the field of pharmacovigilance aiming to improve the safety of drugs. One such actor is Uppsala Monitoring Centre (UMC), a non-profit conducting pharmacovigilance research. In order to access the valuable information of the package inserts, UMC have constructed an SPL mining pipeline in order to mine SPLs for ADRs. This project aims to investigate new approaches to the solution to the Scan problem, the part of the pipeline responsible for extracting mentions of ADRs. The Scan problem is solved by approaching the problem as a Named Entity Recognition task, a subtask of Natural Language Processing. By using the transformer-based deep learning model BERT, with domain-specific pre-training, an F1-score of 0.8220 was achieved. Furthermore, the chosen model was used in an iteration of Active Learning in order to efficiently extend the available data pool with the most informative examples. Active Learning improved the F1-score to 0.8337. However, the Active Learning was benchmarked against a data set extended with random examples, showing similar improved scores, therefore this application of Active Learning could not be determined to be effective in this project.

Implant terms are terms like "pacemaker" which indicate the presence of artifacts in the body of a human. These implant terms are key to determining if a patient can safely undergo Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). However, to identify these terms in medical records is time-consuming, laborious and expensive, but necessary for taking the correct precautions before an MRI scan. Automating this process is of great interest to radiologists as it ideally saves time, prevents mistakes and as a result saves lives. The electronic medical records (EMR) contain the documented medical history of a patient, including any implants or objects that an individual would have inside their body. Information about such objects and implants are of great interest when determining if and how a patient can be scanned using MRI. This information is unfortunately not easily extracted through automatic means. Due to their sparse presence and the unusual structure of medical records compared to most written text, makes it very difficult to automate using simple means. By leveraging the recent advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI), this thesis explores the ability to identify and extract such terms automatically in Swedish EMRs. For the task of identifying implant terms in medical records a generally trained Swedish Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) model is used, which is then fine-tuned on Swedish medical records. Using this model a variety of approaches are explored two of which will be covered in this thesis. Using this model a variety of approaches are explored, namely BERT-KDTree, BERT-BallTree, Cosine Brute Force and unsupervised NER. The results show that BERT-KDTree and BERT-BallTree are the most rewarding methods. Results from both methods have been evaluated by domain experts and appear promising for such an early stage, given the difficulty of the task. The evaluation of BERT-BallTree shows that multiple methods of extraction may be preferable as they provide different but still useful terms. Cosine brute force is deemed to be an unrealistic approach due to computational and memory requirements. The NER approach was deemed too impractical and laborious to justify for this study, yet is potentially useful if not more suitable given a different set of conditions and goals. While there is much to be explored and improved, these experiments are a clear indication that automatic identification of implant terms is possible, as a large number of implant terms were successfully discovered using automated means.

The current study investigates changing attitudes to militarism within Israeli society since the tumultuous decades following 1948. Events leading to the current state of Israeli society will be traced in order to illustrate the way in which change occurs. The shifts in Israeli history and society during these decades will be examined alongside developments in Israeli literature. Accordingly, eight works of fiction have been selected to lie at the heart of the study. These works, all of which centre around the Israeli military experience, convey an erosion of personal, national, and ideological certainties. The analysis of these works demands three areas of exploration: the depiction of the soldier in the civilian setting, the depiction of the soldier as he interacts with other soldiers in the military sphere, and ‘post-Zionist’ military fiction produced in recent decades. These three areas of exploration entail an interrogation of gender, nationalism, and ‘post-Zionism’ in contemporary Israel. The works examined in the third chapter contain commentary not only upon the social reality of their authors, but also upon the way in which Israeli literature engages with the issues that inform its existence. (For complete abstract open document)