The francophone bande dessinée came of age in the late twentieth century, earning the title of “Ninth Art” and becoming increasingly accepted as a focus of critical discussion and academic analysis. However, despite this impressive evolution, the representation of women in the bande dessinée remains vastly understudied. This thesis thus aims to provide a first step in the analysis of female characters as a distinct phenomenon within the Ninth Art. It considers the evolution of female depiction throughout the twentieth-century medium and beyond, and provides close studies of specific female characters, the results of which are synthesised to present comparative conclusions relating to women in the bande dessinée as a whole. The historical and formal specificity of the medium is studied in relation to female representation to determine what may (or may not be) particular to the depiction of women in the bande dessinée. As a medium that is overwhelmingly male-dominated in terms of creation as well as representation, the differing relations to BD production between genders, both historically and socially, are represented within this thesis in a division of chapters examining female representation by men and by women artists. The first and second chapters consider respectively the depiction of female primary and secondary figures created by men in the medium, studying specific character examples and reflecting on the varying ways of looking at women drawn into different roles. The third and final chapter analyses the representation of women figures by women artists, focusing on how the specificity of the medium may contribute to female depiction outside of dominant modes of production and representation. Proposed next steps for continuing research on the representation of women in the bande dessinée form the conclusion to this work.

This thesis proposes a comparative study of some imaginative responses to the Great War in English and French writing. The principal works discussed range from Peguy's anticipation of the war in his poem Eve (1913) to David Jones's recreative memory of it in his poem In Parenthesis (1937). The survey is limited to British and French works, and does not include American and colonial contributions, or the war-writings of other combatant countries. The thesis examines the various ways in which twelve authors - six English and six French - developed and expressed their individual response to the Great War. It is not based on an imaginary anthology of the dozen best war-writings. The twelve examples have been chosen to illustrate and cover as wide a range as possible of the ways the historical experience could be met and interpreted in literature. They include writings by civilians, and by commissioned and non-commissioned soldiers; narrative and discursive prose, essays, letters, and verse. The first chapter considers the war-writings of Rupert Brooke, H. G. Wells and T. E. Hulme; and the second chapter discusses the work of Charles Peguy, Henri Barbusse and Jacques Vache. Chapter 3 is concerned with three novels, by Jean Cocteau, Richard Aldington, and Proust. In the second half of the work, a chapter each is given to Wilfred Owen, Guillaume Apollinaire and David Jones. War-writings by definition include history, and even those most innocent of a propaganda intention are likely to betray an interpretation of history, as well as having some documentary value and, at a less visible level, enacting a private drama. The literature of the Great War, considered as a sub-genre, is the product both of shared and of individual, intimate experience. The purpose of this study has been to suggest the variety of possible literary responses to the Great War; to discover what these responses are likely to have in common, and thus to offer a sketch-map of the topography of the 1914-1918 war in English and French writing; and, by locating these works in a context of European literature as well as of world history, to allow each text discussed reciprocally to illuminate and criticise the others.

My thesis seeks to challenge the existing understanding of the relationship between Romanticism and Post-Modernism in order to put into question the traditional historiographical view of the division of literary history into a series of discrete epochs, each one consecutive to the passing away of the other. My methodology devolves upon a close reading and analysis of the work of three writers and philosophers: the philosopher Immanuel Kant, the 'Post-Modern' French feminist writer Helene Cixous and the 'Romantic' philosopher and poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Through my examination of the oeuvres of these three writers I seek to demonstrate that, in the domain of subjectivity, there is a strong commonality of approach to the question of the construction of the subject in despite of the gulf of time that separates them. In this way I demonstrate that the historiographical approach, which involves the fissuring of the works of writers and philosophers into discrete historical events, is fundamentally susceptible of being put into question.

As an output of the HERA Travelling Texts project, created with the aim of uncovering the realities of women’s literary culture on the fringes of Europe during the long nineteenth century, this study was conceptualised to find out more about the networks of women writers in Spain around 1900, using the digitised corpuses of contemporaneous periodicals as the primary source material. Each chapter of the study centres on a particular periodical, which is used as the starting point for the community of writers and readers, both real and imagined. This thesis looks at the realities of the literary culture for creative women in the late nineteenth century-early twentieth century, exploring the strategies used by women (and men) to support each other in their literary endeavours, how they took inspiration and courage from each other, how they promoted their own names, and how they were received by wider society. The study will also focus on the transnational nature of this literary culture, looking at how women of different nations influenced each other’s work, with a view to understanding more about how cultural change takes place. Finally, this thesis hopes to persuade the reader that the periodical is a rich and under-utilised resource for discovering more about the lives of women writers and their network of relationships.

As bolsas de Produtividade em Pesquisa (PQ) do Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) são destinadas aos pesquisadores que se destaquem entre seus pares, valorizando sua produção científica. O perfil desses bolsistas tem sido objeto de análise frequente em diversos estudos, majoritariamente com foco específico em determinadas áreas do conhecimento. O presente estudo busca caracterizar toda a população de bolsistas PQ do CNPq, oferecendo uma visão mais ampla e contribuindo com o desenvolvimento de políticas de aperfeiçoamento e valorização da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação em todas as áreas. Nesse sentido, o trabalho apresenta e discute dados referentes aos bolsistas e sobre sua produção científica e tecnológica, extraídos dos currículos cadastrados na Plataforma Lattes. As informações referentes aos bolsistas foram divididas em dados gerais sobre os pesquisadores, sobre sua formação em nível de doutorado e sobre a bolsa PQ que possuem atualmente. As informações referentes à produção foram divididas em dados gerais de produção, orientações concluídas, produção bibliográfica, artigos por faixa de JCR e índice H. Os resultados apontaram que há predominância de diversas características dos bolsistas, tais como no sexo, distribuição geográfica, áreas do conhecimento e local de realização do doutorado. Quanto à produção dos pesquisadores, foi possível perceber que há características diferentes entre as áreas do conhecimento, em especial quanto a relevância dos indicadores de produtividade relacionados a artigos publicados para cada área. Observou-se, ainda, que o tempo de formação e o tempo de experiência científica estão diretamente relacionados à classificação dos pesquisadores nos diferentes níveis de bolsa, onde a produtividade e impacto dos bolsistas dos níveis mais altos são efetivamente maiores que os dos bolsistas que ocupam os níveis inferiores. / Research Productivity grants (PQ) of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) are intended for researchers who stand out among their peers, valuing their scientific production. The profile of these scholarship holders has been the object of frequent analysis in several studies, mostly with specific focus in certain areas of knowledge. The present study aims to characterize the entire population of CNPq PQ fellows, offering a broader view and contributing to the development of policies for the improvement and valorization of Science, Technology and Innovation in all areas. In this way, the study presents and discusses data about the scholarship holders and their scientific and technological production, extracted from the curricula registered in the Lattes Platform. The information about the scholarship holders was divided into general information about the researchers, about their doctoral training and about the PQ scholarship they currently have. Production information was divided into general production data, concluded academic advisory, bibliographic production, articles by JCR and H index. The results showed that there are predominant characteristics of the scholarship holders, such as gender, geographical distribution, areas of knowledge and location of the doctorate. Regarding the production of the researchers, it was possible to perceive that there are different characteristics between the areas of knowledge, especially as the relevance of the productivity indicators related to articles published for each area. It was also observed that the time of formation and the time of scientific experience are directly related to the classification of the researchers in the different levels of scholarship, where the productivity and impact of the scholars of the highest levels are actually greater than the scholarship holders of the lower levels.

[pt] No presente trabalho apresentamos um estudo de curvas silhuetas discretas sobre alguns tipos particulares de malhas, com o objetivo de avaliar propriedades dessas curvas. Nosso objeto de estudo são malhas quadrangulares, ou seja, onde todas as faces sejam quadriláteros e também sejam planares. Em particular dois tipos de malhas são discutidas: circular e cônica. Essas malhas são particularmente interessantes em arquitetura para modelagem de estrutura de vidros. A geração das malhas é feita aplicando-se um processo de otimização e em seguida, sobre essas malhas, definimos curvas discretas como candidatas a silhuetas e buscamos medidas de qualidade para essas curvas. / [en] In this work we study discrete silhouette curves on Planar Quad meshes (PQ meshes), with the objective of evaluate some properties of these curves. PQ meshes correspond to planar quadrilaterals meshes, and our interest is focused particularly on two kinds of meshes: Conical and Circular. They are interesting in architecture for design with glass structures. An optimization process is applied for the mesh generation and we follow defining discrete curves on the meshes to obtain silhouette and to measure their quality.

As bolsas de Produtividade em Pesquisa (PQ) do Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) são destinadas aos pesquisadores que se destaquem entre seus pares, valorizando sua produção científica. O perfil desses bolsistas tem sido objeto de análise frequente em diversos estudos, majoritariamente com foco específico em determinadas áreas do conhecimento. O presente estudo busca caracterizar toda a população de bolsistas PQ do CNPq, oferecendo uma visão mais ampla e contribuindo com o desenvolvimento de políticas de aperfeiçoamento e valorização da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação em todas as áreas. Nesse sentido, o trabalho apresenta e discute dados referentes aos bolsistas e sobre sua produção científica e tecnológica, extraídos dos currículos cadastrados na Plataforma Lattes. As informações referentes aos bolsistas foram divididas em dados gerais sobre os pesquisadores, sobre sua formação em nível de doutorado e sobre a bolsa PQ que possuem atualmente. As informações referentes à produção foram divididas em dados gerais de produção, orientações concluídas, produção bibliográfica, artigos por faixa de JCR e índice H. Os resultados apontaram que há predominância de diversas características dos bolsistas, tais como no sexo, distribuição geográfica, áreas do conhecimento e local de realização do doutorado. Quanto à produção dos pesquisadores, foi possível perceber que há características diferentes entre as áreas do conhecimento, em especial quanto a relevância dos indicadores de produtividade relacionados a artigos publicados para cada área. Observou-se, ainda, que o tempo de formação e o tempo de experiência científica estão diretamente relacionados à classificação dos pesquisadores nos diferentes níveis de bolsa, onde a produtividade e impacto dos bolsistas dos níveis mais altos são efetivamente maiores que os dos bolsistas que ocupam os níveis inferiores. / Research Productivity grants (PQ) of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) are intended for researchers who stand out among their peers, valuing their scientific production. The profile of these scholarship holders has been the object of frequent analysis in several studies, mostly with specific focus in certain areas of knowledge. The present study aims to characterize the entire population of CNPq PQ fellows, offering a broader view and contributing to the development of policies for the improvement and valorization of Science, Technology and Innovation in all areas. In this way, the study presents and discusses data about the scholarship holders and their scientific and technological production, extracted from the curricula registered in the Lattes Platform. The information about the scholarship holders was divided into general information about the researchers, about their doctoral training and about the PQ scholarship they currently have. Production information was divided into general production data, concluded academic advisory, bibliographic production, articles by JCR and H index. The results showed that there are predominant characteristics of the scholarship holders, such as gender, geographical distribution, areas of knowledge and location of the doctorate. Regarding the production of the researchers, it was possible to perceive that there are different characteristics between the areas of knowledge, especially as the relevance of the productivity indicators related to articles published for each area. It was also observed that the time of formation and the time of scientific experience are directly related to the classification of the researchers in the different levels of scholarship, where the productivity and impact of the scholars of the highest levels are actually greater than the scholarship holders of the lower levels.

This thesis considers some of those who were killed in politically-motivated attacks, often referred to as ‘terrorism’, which took place during Italy’s anni di piombo. Six works written by victims’ children will be used as a lens through which to examine the collective memory and the victims’ place therein. In recent years, there has been a shift in the way that this period of Italian history - the anni di piombo – has been remembered. Where previously the perpetrators of the violence of those years dominated public discourse, in the last decade the principal narrative has become more victim-centred. The biographical works written by victims’ children have inevitably contributed to this change in the memory narrative. The techniques employed in their writing in order to change the existing public image of their fathers will be analysed in this thesis, along with certain themes that recur throughout the six works and broader victim-centred discussion of this period. Analysis begins with a thorough outline of the political and historical context of the anni di piombo, including case studies of two of the most famous victims of this period and a consideration of the written works of some of the former terrorists. Following this preliminary contextualisation, each of the six books and their authors will be studied in detail to provide a foundation for the analysis contained in the final three chapters. The themes examined in the second half of the thesis are second-generation writing, forgiveness and commemoration. Using these themes as a framework, a rigorous investigation of the place that the victims hold in collective memory; the role their children’s writing has played in shaping and maintaining their public image and the longer-term impact that these changes can be seen to have had within a broader societal and political perspective is undertaken. On the basis of this study, it is evident that the victims’ place in the collective memory of the anni di piombo has changed dramatically since that period of violence concluded. The victims’ children have been very significant in enacting this change and their writing has placed them in a position from which they can continue to exert influence and promote a victim-centred approach to history.

Elektrokardiografi, EKG är den mest använda kardiovaskulära undersökningen för studering av hjärtats funktion, patologi i hjärtats retledningssystem och rytm. För att registrera och undersöka hjärtats elektriska aktivitet, används de standardiserade 12-avledningssystemet (12-SL) med distal placering av extremitetsavledningarna på underarmar och underben. På grund av muskelstörningar som kan förekomma under bland annat ett arbetsprov, är 12-SL inte alltid optimalt. Därför har andra modifierade system för elektrodplacering av extremitetselektroderna som Mason- Likar och Lund-avledningssystemet, ersatt med en omplacering proximalt på överarmar och höftkam. Tidigare studier har visat en förändring i EKG-registreringen som kan leda till falska patologier eller missvisande av det befintliga patologierna. Studier har även visat en förändring i EKG-registreringar som kan uppkomma vid olika kroppspositioner. Syftet med denna studie var därför att studera den potentiella skillnaden som uppstår mellan 12-SL och en proximal omplacering enligt Lund-systemet med en kroppspositionsändring. Studien inkluderade 31 deltagare remitterade till ett ordinärt arbetsprov, där en registrering skedde vid distal- och proximal koppling samt med patienten i sittande läge. Utifrån erhållna EKG-registreringar jämfördes R-vågsamplituden, QRS-durationen samt PQ tiden. Studien visade en statistisk signifikant skillnad i alla extremitetsavledningar vid en förflyttning av elektroderna för R-vågamplituden samt för avledning V5 och –aVL vid ändring av kroppsposition. Ingen signifikant förändring kunde observeras för PQ-tiden och QRS-durationen. / Electrocardiography, ECG is the most used cardiovascular method to study cardiac function, pathology of the heart's retinal system and rhythm. To record and investigate the electrical activity of the heart, the standard 12-lead system (12-SL) with distal placement of the limb leads on the forearms and lower legs are commonly used. Due to muscular artifact that can occur in connection with exercise ECGs, 12-SL is not always optimal for use. Therefore, other systems such as Mason-Likar and the Lund-system have replaced with a proximal repositioning of the limb electrodes. Previous studies have shown a change in ECG registration that can lead to false pathology and alarms when modifying the standardized 12-lead system. Previous studies have also shown a possible change in ECG-registrations that can occur with a different body positions. The purpose of this research was to study the potential change that arises between 12-SL and a proximal relocation according to the Lund system with a difference in a body position. The study included 31 participants referred to the regular work test, where a registration was made at distal and proximal connection as well as with the patient in a sitting position. Based on the obtained ECG, the R- wave amplitudes, QRS- durations and PQ- intervals was measured and compared. Results showed a statistically significant difference in all limb leads at and displacements of the electrodes for the R-wave amplitude as well as for the V5 and -aVL with a different body position. No significant change was observers for the PQ- time and QRS- duration.

We study the Erdős- Sòs conjecture that states that ever graph of average degree greater than k-1 contains every tree of order k+1. While the conjecture was studied for some graphs, it still remains open and of interest after more than 40 years. We study the conjecture for graphs with no K2,s where, s ≥ 2 and k > 12(s-1). We use the fact that as G contains no K2,s, any two distinct vertices in G have at most s-1 neighbors in common in proving the results. We have answered in the affirmative that the Erdős- Sòs conjecture is true for graphs defined above, thus adding to the list of graphs for which the conjecture is true. We also study the Cayley Isomorphism Problem that states that for which finite groups H is it true that any two Cayley graphs of H are isomorphic if and only if they are isomorphic by a group automorphism of H ? (H is a CI-group with respect to graphs.) Determining whether or not a group is a CI-group with respect to graphs has received considerable attention over the last 40 or so years. In particular, we study the problem for (pq,r)-metacirculant color digraphs where p < q < r and pq/| α|. We use the fact that Γ is a CI-color digraph of H if and only if given a permutation γ ∈ SH such that γ-1HLγ ≤ Aut(Γ), HL and γ-1HLγ are conjugate in Aut(Γ). We consider the Cayley isomorphism problem for a nonabelian group of order pqr, where p, q, r are distinct primes such that pq/(r- 1). We show that the results are true, not only for Cayley graphs but for some related classes of non Cayley vertex transitive graphs, thus solving the problem for that case.