This thesis identifies a trend in recent postmodern dystopian fiction for writers to metafictionally dwell on the place of literature in a future context. This trend springs from similar concerns present in the two most influential dystopian novels of the 20th century, Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Yet, unlike Huxley and Orwell, for whom the marginalization of literature is merely one symptom of the hegemonic control oppressing these future societies, the postmodern writers I identify situate the book’s future disappearance at the epicenter of culture’s demise. In Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story (2010), electronic technologies have virtually eradicated print literature and the novel’s protagonist, Lenny, mourns the changes in social interactions he sees this shift in technology bringing about. In Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods (2007), marginalized book-lovers see the devastation humanity continuously wreaks on the environment as a product of culture’s disdain for literature.

Katherine Mansfield among the Moderns examines Katherine Mansfield’s relationship with three fellow writers: Virginia Woolf, D. H. Lawrence, and Aldous Huxley, and appraises her impact on their writing. Drawing on the literary and the personal relationships between the aforementioned, and on letters, diaries, and journals, this project traces Mansfield’s interactions with her contemporaries, providing a richer and more dynamic portrait of Mansfield’s place within modernism than usually recognized. Hitherto, critical work has not scrutinized Mansfield in the manner I suggest: attending to representations of her as a character in other’s work, while analyzing the degree to which her influence on the aforementioned authors affected their writing and success. Albeit, her influence extends in vastly different ways, and is affected by gender and nationality. While Woolf’s early foray into Modernism is accelerated by Mansfield’s criticism of her work, several of Woolf’s texts – “Kew Gardens,” Jacob’s Room, and Mrs. Dalloway – are similar in certain respects to Mansfield’s work – “Bliss” and “The Garden Party.” A repudiation of Mansfield, personally, and a retelling of her work are seen in Lawrence’s The Lost Girl and Women in Love. Huxley’s Those Barren Leaves and Point Counter Point, contain characterizations of Mansfield that undermine her writing, and her person: both are affected by the mythical misrepresentation of Mansfield, created by Murry after her death, known as the “Cult of Mansfield.” Using Life Writing, this study asserts that Mansfield had impact on the writing of Woolf, Lawrence, and Huxley. Taking into account the many issues that surround the recognition of this, among them: gender politics, colonialism, marginality by genre, and personal relations – these all, to varying degrees, prevented critics from acknowledging that a minor modernist author played a role in the undisputed success of three major authors of the twentieth century.

Orientador: Adelia Toledo Bezerra de Meneses / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-08T09:03:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Veratti_NelsonSamuelPorto_M.pdf: 1167836 bytes, checksum: 0c69a907ec6083e5ebe70538b1937d34 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007 / Resumo: Este trabalho busca a revitalização da obra Admirável Mundo Novo, de Aldous Huxley, por meio de uma leitura que não apenas reconhece o seu mérito literário como também resgata o seu teor crítico, cujo valor vem sendo desconsiderado por aqueles que recusam alguns de seus aspectos. Procuramos examinar e reconsiderar os prováveis motivos que levam a obra à margem da crítica literária para, em seguida, apontar a importância desse romance que permite reflexões relevantes sobre o mundo contemporâneo / Abstract: This thesis argues for a renewed reading of Aldous Huxley's ¿Brave New World¿. The interpretation carried out therein not only aknowledges the novel's literary merit, but also recuperates its critical tenor, whose import has been ignored by those who refuse to accept some of its most relevant aspects. The thesis examines and reconsiders the most probable motives which led to this marginal position in critical discourse; following this, it highlights the importance of the novel, which allows one to develop revelant reflections on the contemporary world / Mestrado / Teoria e Critica Literaria / Mestre em Teoria e História Literária

Modification of Hodgkin and Huxley’s experimentally derived set of nonlinear differential equations was implemented to accurately simulate the action potential of the Hirudo Medicinalis’s Retzius cell in MATLAB under analogous conditions to those found in the Retzius cell environment. The voltage-gated sodium and potassium channel responses to changes in membrane potential, as experimentally determined by Hodgkin and Huxley, were manipulated to suit simulation parameters established by electrophysiological Retzius cell recordings. Application of this methodology permitted additional accurate simulation of the Hirudo Medicinalis’s P cell under analogous conditions to those found in the P cell environment. Further refinement of this technique should allow for the voltage-gated behavioral based simulation of action potential waveforms found in variety of neurons under simulation conditions analogous to the nerve cell environment.

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Yes / This paper investigates the interaction phenomena of the coupled axons while the mutual coupling factor is presented as a pairwise description. Based on the Hodgkin-Huxley model and the coupling factor matrix, the membrane potentials of the coupled myelinated/unmyelinated axons are quantified which implies that the neural coupling can be characterised by the presented coupling factor. Meanwhile the equivalent electric circuit is supplied to illustrate the physical meaning of this extended model. In order to estimate the coupling factor, a data-based iterative learning identification algorithm is presented where the Rényi entropy of the estimation error has been minimised. The convergence of the presented algorithm is analysed and the learning rate is designed. To verified the presented model and the algorithm, the numerical simulation results indicate the correctness and the effectiveness. Furthermore, the statistical description of the neural coupling, the approximation using ordinary differential equation, the measurement and the conduction of the nerve signals are discussed respectively as advanced topics. The novelties can be summarised as follows: 1) the Hodgkin-Huxley model has been extended considering the mutual interaction between the neural axon membranes, 2) the iterative learning approach has been developed for factor identification using entropy criterion, and 3) the theoretical framework has been established for this class of system identification problems with convergence analysis. / This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under Grant 51807010, and in part by the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan under Grant 1541 and Grant 1734. / Research Development Fund Publication Prize Award winner, Nov 2020.

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Realizamos simulações computacionais de modelos da atividade elétrica de centros geradores de padrões para investigar o fato experimental de organismos vivos utilizarem neurônios caóticos para produzir padrões periódicos. Centros geradores de padrões biológicos produzem atividades motoras periódicas que devem ser robustas a pequenas flutuações das propriedades dos neurônios e sinapses, mas também flexíveis para permitir a neuromodulação do ritmo. Utilizamos principalmente dois modelos de atividade neural, um modelo fenomenológico do tipo Hindmarsh-Rose e um modelo baseado em condutâncias do tipo Hodgking-Huxley. Realizamos também experimentos com redes híbridas, conectando dois tipos de neurônios do gânglio estomatogástrico de crustáceos aos neurônios modelo, que confirmaram os resultados obtidos nas simulações. Observamos o comportamento das redes principalmente em função de dois parâmetros: um que controla a atividade intrínseca dos neurônios e outro que representa a condutância máxima das sinapses químicas usadas para formar a rede. As redes apresentam atividade robusta e flexível quando os neurônios que as compõem apresentam comportamento intrínseco entre rajadas e tônico. Esta é a região onde os neurônios modelo apresentam comportamento caótico, o que é uma evidência do motivo de se observar este tipo de comportamento em neurônios isolados do gânglio estomatogástrico dos crustáceos. Mostramos que o modelo tipo Hodgkin-Huxley, apesar de mais realista do ponto de vista eletrofisiológico, não apresenta um comportamento coletivo satisfatório em termos de flexibilidade e robustez. Os experimentos com redes híbridas evidenciaram como deveria ser modificado o modelo para que o comportamento coletivo fosse restaurado. Investigamos também outros aspectos da atividade neural: a obtenção de padrões oscilatórios com neurônios que não apresentam comportamento intrinsecamente oscilatório e a influência de perturbações causada por ruídos na atividade neural. / Realizamos simulações computacionais de modelos da atividade elétrica de centros geradores de padrões para investigar o fato experimental de organismos vivos utilizarem neurônios caóticos para produzir padrões periódicos. Centros geradores de padrões biológicos produzem atividades motoras periódicas que devem ser robustas a pequenas flutuações das propriedades dos neurônios e sinapses, mas também flexíveis para permitir a neuromodulação do ritmo. Utilizamos principalmente dois modelos de atividade neural, um modelo fenomenológico do tipo Hindmarsh-Rose e um modelo baseado em condutâncias do tipo Hodgking-Huxley. Realizamos também experimentos com redes híbridas, conectando dois tipos de neurônios do gânglio estomatogástrico de crustáceos aos neurônios modelo, que confirmaram os resultados obtidos nas simulações. Observamos o comportamento das redes principalmente em função de dois parâmetros: um que controla a atividade intrínseca dos neurônios e outro que representa a condutância máxima das sinapses químicas usadas para formar a rede. As redes apresentam atividade robusta e flexível quando os neurônios que as compõem apresentam comportamento intrínseco entre rajadas e tônico. Esta é a região onde os neurônios modelo apresentam comportamento caótico, o que é uma evidência do motivo de se observar este tipo de comportamento em neurônios isolados do gânglio estomatogástrico dos crustáceos. Mostramos que o modelo tipo Hodgkin-Huxley, apesar de mais realista do ponto de vista eletrofisiológico, não apresenta um comportamento coletivo satisfatório em termos de flexibilidade e robustez. Os experimentos com redes híbridas evidenciaram como deveria ser modificado o modelo para que o comportamento coletivo fosse restaurado. Investigamos também outros aspectos da atividade neural: a obtenção de padrões oscilatórios com neurônios que não apresentam comportamento intrinsecamente oscilatório e a influência de perturbações causada por ruídos na atividade neural. We have performed computational simulations of models of the neural electrical activity of central pattern generators in order to investigate the experimental fact that living organisms use chaotic neurons to produce periodic patterns. Biological central pattern generators produce periodic motor activity that must be robust to small fluctuacions in the neural and synaptic properties, but they must also be flexible to alow rhythm neuromodulation. We have used mainly two different models of neural activity, one phenomenological Hindmarsh-Rose type and another conductance based Hodgking-Huxley type. We have also performed experiments with hybrid networks, connecting two types crustacean stomatogastric ganglion neurons with the model neurons, which confirmed the results obtained with the simulations. We have simulated the network behavior as a function of two parameters: the maximal conductance of the chemical synapses by which neurons are connected and a parameter that controls the intrinsic behavior of the neurons. The networks present robust and flexible activity when the neurons have intrinsic beharior between bursting and tonic. This is the region in which model neurons present chaotic behavior, what is an evidence of why chaotic behavior takes place in isolated neurons from the stomatogastric ganglion (STG) of crustaceans. We have shown that the Hodgking-Huxley type model does not perform a satisfactory collective behavior in terms of flexibility and robustness, in spite of its electrophysiological realism. Experiments with hybrid networks showed how the model should be modified in order to restore the proper collective behavior. We have also investigated other aspects of the neural activity: the observation of oscillatory patterns in networks composed by neurons that are not endogenous bursters and the influence of perturbations in the neural activity caused by noize.

In my dissertation Theory of Petrified Worlds on the Example of Anti-Utopian and Dystopian Literature, I deal with anti-utopian and dystopian literature, which has been largely neglected by Czech scholarship. After the introduction to the issue I deal with the detailed analysis of the novel We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, after which I devote my attention to the theoretical definition of terms, including the historical mapping of previous research. I focus on the historical context of the emergence of the genres, including a deeper analysis of its beginnings, i.e. the development of utopian literature from Plato to William Morris and Herbert George Wells, and in detail describe the emergence of anti-utopian literature primarily as an opposition to utopian tendencies and its evolution into dystopia. A major part of the work deals with a specific semiotic analysis of the characteristic and constitutive features of the genres of anti-utopian and dystopian literature of the 20th and 21st centuries. This includes, among other things, the closed and petrified world of the novels, which gave the name to the presented theory, the strict division of society, the existence of newspeak, the characteristics of the main and secondary characters, as well as the social and political context of the analysed works. In...

The three dystopian novels Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Kallocain by Karin Boye and Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell have been highly discussed amongst literary critics and scholars. Although these works are well-known, some themes have had very little or no recognition. Biological reproduction is a recurring subject in dystopian literature. Although it is not the main theme in the novels, it is a very important part in dystopian culture and dystopian society. By focusing on reproduction and the structure of gender roles in these three dystopias, I hope to bring to light something that's been in the shadows for a long time i.e. the women of dystopian society. I will address the role of nature and technology in terms of reproduction by using Pia Maria Ahlbäck's theory of the heterotopia. Later, I will discuss the problems and possibilities of the role of women in biological reproduction.