Thesis (MPhil)--Open University.

ABSTRACT Since the inception of cinema, women have been portrayed with the typical identities of emotionally and physically weak characters; this portrayal led to their subsequent dependence on men. Men were usually the protagonists and/or the heroes, following their archetypal journey. Thus, women's position in early cinema was to exemplify what men were not, placing the former in the diminutive position of the Other. One may conclude that men were often defined by what women lacked, and the women were defined by their relationships with these heroic men. As time progressed in the history of cinema, women's images retained part of this former definition; however, their identities were also shaped by the manners in which they related with the male characters. This scenario remains consistent in contemporary cinema as well. The research will reveal how the stereotyped women's identities change as they interact with the male characters; specifically, it will address the roles of the femme fatale in American cinema and the prostitute in Italian cinema. There are various factors that shape identity in film and literature. However, this research will focus mainly on male and female interactions in these areas: Postwar Italian cinema and American film noir. It will enhance research conducted by various film theorists and reveal the significance of shaping identity with gender interactions. Moreover, it will determine that shaping identity often serves as a significant catalyst for narrative.

The novel Salve Creek tells the story of Xavier Creed, a young man murdered in a small industry town in contemporary Northern Alberta. When Xavier goes missing the night of a large bush party, no one notices his absence. Having spoken for months about leaving for Edmonton, his friends and even his own mother assume that he took the Greyhound. Told through the close-third person narration of three main characters—Penelope, Dean, and Westley—the novel takes place over the duration of a year. With the discovery of Xavier’s remains, the narrative moves forwards and backwards in time, pushing against perceptions, as well as both the reader and characters’ understanding of events. Salve Creek is a non-linear narrative told primarily in fragments to reflect the shattered status quo of both town and characters. Penelope, who felt a desire bordering on obsession for Xavier, is particularly affected by his death and finds herself unable to sleep. Her dreams bring her closer to Xavier and repeatedly to the neighbours’ empty field. Dean, who met Penelope the night of the bush party, struggles to communicate his attraction to her. As the novel progresses, his frustration takes increasingly violent shapes. Westley, ten years older than both Dean and Penelope, is a stranger to them both and his actions affect them in ways they cannot see or understand. Salve Creek is a rural noir, written in the new gothic style.

M. Tech. Entertainment Technology / Adapting popular motion pictures to theatre stage productions has been very popular in recent years. Some of the best examples are the motion picture productions The Lord of the Rings, Billy Elliot and The Colour Purple that were adapted to stage musical productions. This was the case with the original Danish film Festen or The Celebration that was adapted and staged as a theatre play with English text in London in 2004. Pertaining to Festen, the film was originally produced according to the Dogma 95 Principles - a set of principles that were specifically aimed at the film industry and totally differed from any known and applied film practices of the time. The main problem that scenic designers of later stage productions had to deal with when the film was adapted to a stage production was that these principles had a very specific influence on the stage designs for this specific production. For the staging of the play Festen by the Drama Department of Tshwane University in Pretoria the director and the designer not only decided to oppose the Dogma 95 Principles totally, they also decided to design a set in a Film Noir style. They further decided to stage the play with a Caucasian cast using the English text and a black cast using a Zulu text. This resulted in having a major influence on the final outcome of the production. The research question that has to be answered in this research project is "whether it is possible to adapt the design of a very specific type of film production that was originally governed by a set of specific principles for a stage production of the same play".

Une exposition aux nanoparticules (NP) de dioxyde de titane (TiO2) peut entraîner un remodelage matriciel, dans lequel la Matrix Metalloprotéase-1 (MMP-1) notamment pourrait jouer un rôle important. Pour vérifier cette hypothèse, nous avons 1/ mesuré l' expression de la MMP-1 sur des fibroblastes pulmonaires humains après exposition à des particules de TiO2 de différentes tailles, formes et variétés cristallines, ainsi qu' une NP de noir de carbone (NC), et 2/ administré des NP de TiO2 et de NC sur un modèle d‟emphysème pulmonaire induit par l' élastase chez le rat. Sur les fibroblastes pulmonaires humains, certaines NP de TiO2 induisent l' expression de la MMP-1 via l' interleukine-1β (IL-1β) et augmentent son activité. Les particules de TiO2 micrométriques induisent l' expression de la MMP-1 sans lien avec l' IL-1β et les NP de NC ne modulent pas l' expression de la MMP-1. L' exposition des rats aux NP de TiO2 n' entraîne pas d' effet ; l' exposition aux NP de NC entraîne une inflammation et une induction de l' expression de la MMP-12. Cette exposition aggrave, de plus, l' inflammation provoquée par l' élastase, ce qui n' est pas observé avec les NP de TiO2. Au total, notre travail montre bien un rôle pour les NP de TiO2 dans le remodelage matriciel, via l' induction et l' activation de la MMP-1 in vitro. In vivo, les NP de NCpeuvent aggraver ceertaines réponses à l' élastse. La composition chimique et la taille des particules semblent être des déterminants importants de leurs effets.

Les " gels attractifs " constituent une catégorie particulière de fluides complexes. Ces gels sont formés à partir d'une suspension de particules attractives en faible concentration volumique. La microstructure du gel est très facilement modifiée par l'application d'une contrainte. Ainsi, il est possible de structurer ces gels par un cisaillement dans une géométrie suffisamment confinée. Nous avons étudié en détail ce phénomène dans des gels de noirs de carbone ainsi que dans des suspensions de billes de verre dans de l'huile rendues attractives par la présence d'une faible quantité d'eau. Nous avons reproduit ce phénomène dans des simulations numériques de dynamique moléculaire, ce qui permet d'étudier les conditions nécessaires à l'apparition de telles structures. Enfin, en géométrie peu confinée, le mécanisme de rupture et d'écoulement de ces gels en volume est complexe puisque leur rupture est en perpétuelle compétition avec leurcinétique de reformation. Nous avons étudié la rupture des gels de noir de carbone en couplant des techniques classiques de rhéologie avec une technique de mesure locale de déplacement par ultrasons. Ces expériences nous ont permis d'établir un lien entre le comportement global du matériau (sa rhéologie macroscopique) et la dynamique locale de fluidification.

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

We obtain the general solution of the Einstein-(anti) Maxwell-(anti) Dilaton (EMD) theory for a static, spherically symmetric spacetime in four dimensions. In the phantom (anti) cases, we obtain new solutions with non-degenerate horizon and make the analysis of their causal structures. The causal structures of some solutions are exotics, some of them can not be described in two-dimensional usual Penrose diagrams. We obtain also, using the method of Sigma model, new stationary solutions with axial symmetry, for Einstein-anti-Maxwell-Dilaton (EM¯\bar{M}D) and Einstein-anti-Maxwell-Dilaton-Axion (EM¯\bar{M}DA) theory. We analyse the causal structure of these new solutions.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Social Inquiry, 1999? / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 104-117).