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Benito Perez Galdos's literary depictions of addiction transcend those of other late nineteenth-century Naturalist authors, such as Emile Zola of France, to offer a strikingly modern perspective of addiction. Typical nineteenth-century representations of alcoholism merely describe the long term effects of heavy drinking and alcoholic degeneration, especially in the proletariat. In Galdos's novels, such as La desheredada (1881) and Fortunata y Jacinta (1886--1887), figures of addiction and representations of addictive pathologies, which we recognize in his descriptions of vicio, locura, and embriaguez, demonstrate an understanding of the same motivations or defects that are recognized as addictive features today Studies that focus on addiction in nineteenth-century Spain or on representations of alcoholism in nineteenth-century Spanish letters are rare. Historians of the period's psychiatry concur that Spain relied heavily on foreign, especially French, psychiatric models and theories. In addition, figures of madness and addiction were represented and constructed in the novelistic art of the era, and the work of Galdos is especially rich in this respect. A comparison of historical and medical literature with Galdos's fiction of the same period is fruitful in delineating some common beliefs as well as pointing to subversions of official 'truths' regarding madness and addiction. From this perspective, we can read Galdos's work as a challenge to medical science and the discourses related to the construction and control of the individual in nineteenth-century Spain on two fronts. Firstly, the humanist author's ironic appropriation of medical, scientific, and pharmacological subjects and terms signals a refusal to privilege science over literary fiction in its power to explain and study human behavior. Secondly, Galdos's work contains a challenge to the normalizing discourse of science, which sought to posit (as Foucault famously described) distinct identities in the categorizing of human beings and their behavior. It is particularly through figures of madness and addiction that Galdos teases out the contradictions inherent in the discourses employed by the medical, religious, and social experts of the day, thereby problematizing the binaries of reason and unreason / acase@tulane.edu

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The objective of this investigation was to evaluate the feasibility of using high-strength concrete in the design and construction of highway bridge structures. A literature search was conducted; a survey of five regional fabrication plants was performed; mix designs were studied in the laboratory and in the field; and three series of tests consisting of a total of nine full-scale specimens were conducted The first series included 3 pile specimens tested in flexure. Each of the pile specimens had a 24-in. (610-mm) square cross section with a 12-in. diameter void running its full length. All the pile specimens were 24 ft (7.31 m) long. The pile specimen concrete, at the time of testing, had an average compressive strength of 8,067 psi (55 MPa) The second series consisted of three full-size bulb-tee specimens. Flexural tests of two bulb-tee specimens are reported. The third specimen is being used for determination of long term behavior Three shear tests are also reported. These shear tests were performed using the ends of the two flexural test specimens. Since the shear specimens were taken from the flexural specimens, they had the same cross-sectional configuration and concrete strength as the flexural specimens The fabrication and driving of a single 130 ft (39.6 m) pile specimen is reported. The pile specimen had the same cross-sectional configuration as the pile specimens tested in the laboratory. The concrete of the pile specimen had an average 28-day compressive strength of 10,453 psi (72 MPa) Based on this investigation, the following conclusions are made: (1) High-strength concrete with strengths of 10,000 psi (69 MPa) can be produced using regionally available materials, however, quality control measures presently in use must be upgraded. (2) AASHTO Standard Specifications for Highway Bridges conservatively predicted the behavior of the pile and girder specimens in the area of flexural strength, cracking moment, inclined cracking, shear strength, strand transfer length, effective width of top flange, estimation of prestress losses, modulus of elasticity, and modulus of rupture. (3) Girder camber/deflection measurements were consistent with values calculated using conventional methods. (4) High-strength concrete can be used effectively in long piles. The higher tensile strength and higher precompression is particularly valuable in soft driving conditions where tensile driving stresses are high. (5) Steam curing of high-strength concrete may reduce strength development at later ages. (Abstract shortened by UMI.) / acase@tulane.edu

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This dissertation examines some of the economic efficiency implications of decentralized public decision-making. It ignores direct spillovers of public goods and services and focuses instead on so-called fiscal-externalities, which are said to occur when tax and spending decisions in one community affect another community's fiscal sector (e.g. by expanding or contracting its tax base) The study begins by reviewing some of the work that provides the foundation for this line of inquiry. It then concentrates on describing the economic inefficiency that can occur when local-welfare-maximizing governments make tax and spending decisions in the face of capital mobility. It is argued that some of the results in this area are incorrect or incomplete, and a more thorough analysis is provided The study then goes on to argue that governments tax capital for various reasons, and that, fiscal-externalities from the taxation of capital may be a more general phenomenon than previously recognized. In the penultimate chapter on attempt is made to describe the total welfare loss when communities with differing preferences for public goods use capital taxes to finance those goods. In the process, a synthesis of previous work is provided. The final chapter provides a summary and some further thoughts / acase@tulane.edu

Domestication of the capybara for use as a commercial meat source increases the need to assess the parasites of this animal, especially those which cause disease or may be transmissible to other domestic animals and man. Survey studies have detected a high prevalence of renal filariasis in capybaras, associated with considerable tissue damage. Cruorifilaria tuberocauda Eberhard, Morales, and Orihel, 1976 has been identified as the filaria which produces these infections. Microfilariae distinct from C. tuberocauda have been observed in histologic sections of capybara skin indicating the presence of other filariae in this animal which should be evaluated in terms of their vector requirements, pathogenesis, and potential usefulness as experimental models for human filariasis, especially onchocerciasis. In the present work a morphologic and taxonomic description of Dipetalonema hydrochoerus sp. n. from Colombian capybaras is presented. Larval morphology and development of this species within the ixodid tick, Amblyomma cajennense, are described. The microanatomy of this filaria, as it appeared in tissue sections, is described. Descriptions of Cruorifilaria tuberocauda microfilariae from skin snips and two additional skin-dwelling microfilariae designated microfilaria species 'A' and microfilaria species 'B' are also presented. Evaluation of concentrations of microfilaria species 'A', microfilaria species 'B' and C. tuberocauda microfilariae in weighed skin snips revealed that all three species are unevenly distributed in the skin. High concentrations were consistently observed from the dorsal aspect of the body (top of head, ears, back) while low concentrations of microfilariae were seen in snips from several other body areas. Circadian fluctuations in the concentrations of species 'A' and C. tuberocauda microfilariae were observed. A low undulating wave of microfilarial concentrations, peaking between 0800 and 1000 hours was noted for C. tuberocauda, while a sharp concentration peak was observed at 1000 hours for microfilaria species 'A'. Concentrations of species 'B' microfilariae did not appear to fluctuate in a uniform pattern. The levels of D. hydrochoerus microfilariae in the experimental animals were too low to allow an evaluation of distribution or circadian behavior / acase@tulane.edu

Both inter and intramolecular Horner-Emmons reactions were examined as methods for the preparation of cyclopentenones and cyclopentenals. These enones and enals are useful as precursors to a number of natural products (and analogs) which include the jasmones, pyrethrins, and the prostaglandins. It was determined that the addition of cerium trichloride during the intermolecular Horner-Emmons reaction of aldehydes with 2-oxocyclopentyl diethyl-phosphonate significantly increased the yield of the expected cyclopentenones. In addition, a variety of new 5-substituted cyclopenten-1-als were selectively prepared by a simple two step process. The first step involved the Diels-Alder reaction of a number of electron-poor olefins with dimethyl 1-(1,3-butadienyl)phosphonate. The final step included ozonolysis of the Diels-Alder adducts, reduction of the ozonide, and intramolecular Horner-Emmons reaction to form six new 5-substituted cyclopenten-1-als / acase@tulane.edu

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