Reading the Texture of Reality : Chaos Theory, Literature and the Humanist Perspective

Tutkimuksessa analysoidaan kaaosteorian vaikutusta kaunokirjallisuudessa ja kirjallisuudentutkimuksessa ja esitetään, että kaaosteorian roolia kirjallisuuden kentällä voidaan parhaiten ymmärtää sen avaamien käsitteiden kautta. Suoran soveltamisen sijaan kaaosteorian avulla on käyty uudenlaisia keskusteluja vanhoista aiheista ja luonnontieteestä ammennetut käsitteet ovat johtaneet aiemmin tukkeutuneiden argumenttien avaamiseen uudesta näkökulmasta käsin. Väitöskirjassa keskitytään kolmeen osa-alueeseen: kaunokirjallisen teoksen rakenteen teoretisointiin, ihmisen (erityisesti tekijän) identiteetin hahmottamiseen ja kuvailemiseen sekä fiktion ja todellisuuden suhteen pohdintaan. Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena on osoittaa, kuinka kaaosteorian kautta näitä aiheita on lähestytty niin kirjallisuustieteessä kuin kaunokirjallisissa teoksissakin. Väitöskirjan keskiössä ovat romaanikirjailija John Barthin, dramatisti Tom Stoppardin ja runoilija Jorie Grahamin teosten analyysit. Nämä kirjailijat ammentavat kaaosteoriasta keinoja käsitteellistää rakenteita, jotka ovat yhtä aikaa dynaamisia prosesseja ja hahmotettavia muotoja. Kaunokirjallisina teemoina nousevat esiin myös ihmisen paradoksaalisesti tunnistettava ja aina muuttuva identiteetti sekä lopullista haltuunottoa pakeneva, mutta silti kiehtova ja tavoiteltava todellisuus. Näiden kirjailijoiden teosten analyysin sekä teoreettisen keskustelun kautta väitöskirjassa tuodaan esiin aiemmassa tutkimuksessa varjoon jäänyt, koherenssia, ymmärrettävyyttä ja realismia painottava humanistinen näkökulma kaaosteorian merkityksestä kirjallisuudessa.

Rhetoric and Representation : Exploring the Cultural Meaning of the Natural Sciences in Contemporary Popular Science Writing and Literature

Kirjallisuuden- ja kulttuurintutkimus on viimeisten kolmen vuosikymmenen aikana tullut yhä enenevässä määrin tietoiseksi tieteen ja taiteen suhteen monimutkaisesta luonteesta. Nykyään näiden kahden kulttuurin tutkimus muodostaa oman kenttänsä, jolla niiden suhdetta tarkastellaan ennen kaikkea dynaamisena vuorovaikutuksena, joka heijastaa kulttuurimme kieltä, arvoja ja ideologisia sisältöjä. Toisin kuin aiemmat näkemykset, jotka pitävät tiedettä ja taidetta toisilleen enemmän tai vähemmän vastakkaisina pyrkimyksinä, nykytutkimus lähtee oletuksesta, jonka mukaan ne ovat kulttuurillisesti rakentuneita diskursseja, jotka kohtaavat usein samankaltaisia todellisuuden mallintamiseen liittyviä ongelmia, vaikka niiden käyttämät metodit eroavatkin toisistaan. Väitöskirjani keskittyy yllä mainitun suhteen osa-alueista popularisoidun tietokirjallisuuden (muun muassa Paul Davies, James Gleick ja Richard Dawkins) käyttämän kielen ja luonnontieteistä ideoita ammentavan kaunokirjallisuuden (muun muassa Jeanette Winterson, Tom Stoppard ja Richard Powers) hyödyntämien keinojen tarkasteluun nojautuen yli 30 teoksen kattavaa aineistoa koskevaan tyylin ja teemojen tekstianalyysiin. Populaarin tietokirjallisuuden osalta tarkoituksenani on osoittaa, että sen käyttämä kieli rakentuu huomattavassa määrin sellaisille rakenteille, jotka tarjoavat mahdollisuuden esittää todellisuutta koskevia argumentteja mahdollisimman vakuuttavalla tavalla. Tässä tehtävässä monilla klassisen retoriikan määrittelemillä kuvioilla on tärkeä rooli, koska ne auttavat liittämään sanotun sisällön ja muodon tiukasti toisiinsa: retoristen kuvioiden käyttö ei näin ollen edusta pelkkää tyylikeinoa, vaan se myös usein kiteyttää argumenttien taustalla olevat tieteenfilosofiset olettamukset ja auttaa vakiinnuttamaan argumentoinnin logiikan. Koska monet aikaisemmin ilmestyneistä tutkimuksista ovat keskittyneet pelkästään metaforan rooliin tieteellisissä argumenteissa, tämä väitöskirja pyrkii laajentamaan tutkimuskenttää analysoimalla myös toisenlaisten kuvioiden käyttöä. Osoitan myös, että retoristen kuvioiden käyttö muodostaa yhtymäkohdan tieteellisiä ideoita hyödyntävään kaunokirjallisuuteen. Siinä missä popularisoitu tiede käyttää retoriikkaa vahvistaakseen sekä argumentatiivisia että kaunokirjallisia ominaisuuksiaan, kuvaa tällainen sanataide tiedettä tavoilla, jotka usein heijastelevat tietokirjallisuuden kielellisiä rakenteita. Toisaalta on myös mahdollista nähdä, miten kaunokirjallisuuden keinot heijastuvat popularisoidun tieteen kerrontatapoihin ja kieleen todistaen kahden kulttuurin dynaamisesta vuorovaikutuksesta. Nykyaikaisen populaaritieteen retoristen elementtien ja kaunokirjallisuuden keinojen vertailu näyttää lisäksi, kuinka tiede ja taide osallistuvat keskusteluun kulttuurimme tiettyjen peruskäsitteiden kuten identiteetin, tiedon ja ajan merkityksestä. Tällä tavoin on mahdollista nähdä, että molemmat ovat perustavanlaatuisia osia merkityksenantoprosessissa, jonka kautta niin tieteelliset ideat kuin ihmiselämän suuret kysymyksetkin saavat kulttuurillisesti rakentuneen merkityksensä.

Toward Figural Fantasy : The Representation of Consciousness in Modern American Fantasy Literature

Tajunnanesitys amerikkalaisessa heterodiegeettisessä fantasiakirjallisuudessa on muuttunut merkittävästi viimeisen kolmen vuosikymmenen aikana: kerrontaa orientoiva ja tarinamaailmaa havainnoiva tajunta on vähin erin vaihtunut kaikkitietävästä kertojasta tarinan sisäiseksi henkilöhahmoksi. Kertoja on samalla vetäytynyt yhä syvemmälle kerronnan kulissien taakse. Tämä tutkielma hahmottaa ja analysoi kyseistä muutosta siirtymänä kertojakeskeisestä kerronnasta kohti henkilökeskeistä kerrontaa. Tutkielmassa tajunnanesityksen teoreettisen kehyksen muodostavat F. K. Stanzelin kertojakeskeisen ja henkilökeskeisen kerrontatilanteen käsitteet. Kerrontatilanteita tarkennetaan fokalisaation, vapaan epäsuoran esityksen, sisäisen monologin ja psykonarraation teorioiden avulla. Tutkielma jakaantuu kahteen osaan. Ensimmäisessä osassa vertaillaan kahta prototyyppistä fantasiaromaania syväluotaavan narratologisen analyysin keinoin. Kertojakeskeistä kerrontaa edustaa Fritz Leiberin "The Swords of Lankhmar" (1968) ja henkilökeskeistä kerrontaa George R. R. Martinin "A Game of Thrones" (1996). Toisessa osassa tarkastellaan pääpiirteittäin kuuttatoista muuta aikaansa edustavaa fantasiaromaania ja hahmotetaan tajunnanesityksen muutoksen kronologista kulkua. Yhdessä osat ilmentävät, kuinka amerikkalainen heterodiegeettinen fantasiakirjallisuus on muuttunut kerrontateknisesti henkilökeskeisemmäksi. Tutkielma on ensimmäinen laatuaan, ja sen on tarkoitus luoda pohjaa uudenlaiselle modernin fantasiakirjallisuuden tutkimukselle ja kirjalliselle arvostukselle.

Double-Edged Imitation : Theories and Practices of Pastiche in Literature

This study concentrates on the contested concept of pastiche in literary studies. It offers the first detailed examination of the history of the concept from its origins in the seventeenth century to the present, showing how pastiche emerged as a critical concept in interaction with the emerging conception of authorial originality and the copyright laws protecting it. One of the key results of this investigation is the contextualisation of the postmodern debate on pastiche. Even though postmodern critics often emphasise the radical novelty of pastiche, they in fact resuscitate older positions and arguments without necessarily reflecting on their historical conditions. This historical background is then used to analyse the distinction between the primarily French conception of pastiche as the imitation of style and the postmodern notion of it as the compilation of different elements. The latter s vagueness and inclusiveness detracts from its value as a critical concept. The study thus concentrates on the notion of stylistic pastiche, challenging the widespread prejudice that it is merely an indication of lack of talent. Because it is multiply based on repetition, pastiche is in fact a highly ambiguous or double-edged practice that calls into question the distinction between repetition and original, thereby undermining the received notion of individual unique authorship as a fundamental aesthetic value. Pastiche does not, however, constitute a radical upheaval of the basic assumptions on which the present institution of literature relies, since, in order to mark its difference, pastiche always refers to a source outside itself against which its difference is measured. Finally, the theoretical analysis of pastiche is applied to literary works. The pastiches written by Marcel Proust demonstrate how it can become an integral part of a writer s poetics: imitation of style is shown to provide Proust with a way of exploring the role of style as a connecting point between inner vision and reality. The pastiches of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Michael Dibdin, Nicholas Meyer and the duo Adrian Conan Doyle and John Dickson Carr illustrate the functions of pastiche within a genre detective fiction that is itself fundamentally repetitive. A.S. Byatt s Possession and D.M. Thomas s Charlotte use Victorian pastiches to investigate the conditions of literary creation in the age of postmodern suspicion of creativity and individuality. The study thus argues that the concept of pastiche has valuable insights to offer to literary criticism and theory, and that literary pastiches, though often dismissed in reviews and criticism, are a particularly interesting object of study precisely because of their characteristic ambiguity.

Global processes, local strategies : migration of educated Dominicans.

The aim of this thesis is to examine migration of educated Dominicans in light of global processes. Current global developments have resulted in increasingly global movements of people, yet people tend to come from certain places in large numbers rather than others. At the same time, international migration is increasingly selective, which shows in the disproportional number of educated migrants. This study discovers individual and societal motivations that explain why young educated Dominicans decide to migrate and return. The theoretical framework of this thesis underlines that migration is a dynamic process rooted in other global developments. Migratory movements should be seen as a result of interacting macro- and microstructures, which are linked by a number of intermediate mechanisms, meso-structures. The way individuals perceive opportunity structures concretises the way global developments mediate to the micro-level. The case of the Dominican Republic shows that there is a diversity of local responses to the world system, as Dominicans have produced their own unique historical responses to global changes. The thesis explains that Dominican migration is importantly conditioned by socioeconomic and educational background. Migration is more accessible for the educated middle class, because of the availability of better resources. Educated migrants also seem less likely to rely on networks to organize their migrations. The role of networks in migration differs by socioeconomic background on the one hand, and by the specific connections each individual has to current and previous migrants on the other hand. The personal and cultural values of the migrant are also pivotal. The central argument of this thesis is that a veritable culture of migration has evolved in the Dominican Republic. The actual economic, political and social circumstances have led many Dominicans to believe that there are better opportunities elsewhere. The globalisation of certain expectations on the one hand, and the development of the specifically Dominican feeling of ‘externalism’ on the other, have for their part given rise to the Dominican culture of migration. The study also suggests that the current Dominican development model encourages migration. Besides global structures, local structures are found to ve pivotal in determining how global processes are materialised in a specific place. The research for this thesis was conducted by using qualitative methodology. The focus of this thesis was on thematic interviews that reveal the subject’s point of view and give a fuller understanding of migration and mobility of the educated. The data was mainly collected during a field research phase in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic in December 2009 and January 2010. The principal material consists of ten thematic interviews held with educated Dominican current or former migrants. Four expert interviews, relevant empirical data, theoretical literature and newspaper articles were also comprehensively used.

Open Access to the Scientific Journal Literature: Situation 2009

Background: The Internet has recently made possible the free global availability of scientific journal articles. Open Access (OA) can occur either via OA scientific journals, or via authors posting manuscripts of articles published in subscription journals in open web repositories. So far there have been few systematic studies showing how big the extent of OA is, in particular studies covering all fields of science. Methodology/Principal Findings: The proportion of peer reviewed scholarly journal articles, which are available openly in full text on the web, was studied using a random sample of 1837 titles and a web search engine. Of articles published in 2008, 8,5% were freely available at the publishers’ sites. For an additional 11,9% free manuscript versions could be found using search engines, making the overall OA percentage 20,4%. Chemistry (13%) had the lowest overall share of OA, Earth Sciences (33%) the highest. In medicine, biochemistry and chemistry publishing in OA journals was more common. In all other fields author-posted manuscript copies dominated the picture. Conclusions/Significance: The results show that OA already has a significant positive impact on the availability of the scientific journal literature and that there are big differences between scientific disciplines in the uptake. Due to the lack of awareness of OA-publishing among scientists in most fields outside physics, the results should be of general interest to all scholars. The results should also interest academic publishers, who need to take into account OA in their business strategies and copyright policies, as well as research funders, who like the NIH are starting to require OA availability of results from research projects they fund. The method and search tools developed also offer a good basis for more in-depth studies as well as longitudinal studies.

Global Processes, Local Strategies : migration of educated Dominicans.

The aim of this thesis is to examine migration of educated Dominicans in light of global processes. Current global developments have resulted in increasingly global movements of people, yet people tend to come from certain places in large numbers rather than others. At the same time, international migration is increasingly selective, which shows in the disproportional number of educated migrants. This study discovers individual and societal motivations that explain why young educated Dominicans decide to migrate and return. The theoretical framework of this thesis underlines that migration is a dynamic process rooted in other global developments. Migratory movements should be seen as a result of interacting macro- and microstructures, which are linked by a number of intermediate mechanisms, meso-structures. The way individuals perceive opportunity structures concretises the way global developments mediate to the micro-level. The case of the Dominican Republic shows that there is a diversity of local responses to the world system, as Dominicans have produced their own unique historical responses to global changes. The thesis explains that Dominican migration is importantly conditioned by socioeconomic and educational background. Migration is more accessible for the educated middle class, because of the availability of better resources. Educated migrants also seem less likely to rely on networks to organize their migrations. The role of networks in migration differs by socioeconomic background on the one hand, and by the specific connections each individual has to current and previous migrants on the other hand. The personal and cultural values of the migrant are also pivotal. The central argument of this thesis is that a veritable culture of migration has evolved in the Dominican Republic. The actual economic, political and social circumstances have led many Dominicans to believe that there are better opportunities elsewhere. The globalisation of certain expectations on the one hand, and the development of the specifically Dominican feeling of ‘externalism’ on the other, have for their part given rise to the Dominican culture of migration. The study also suggests that the current Dominican development model encourages migration. Besides global structures, local structures are found to ve pivotal in determining how global processes are materialised in a specific place. The research for this thesis was conducted by using qualitative methodology. The focus of this thesis was on thematic interviews that reveal the subject’s point of view and give a fuller understanding of migration and mobility of the educated. The data was mainly collected during a field research phase in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic in December 2009 and January 2010. The principal material consists of ten thematic interviews held with educated Dominican current or former migrants. Four expert interviews, relevant empirical data, theoretical literature and newspaper articles were also comprehensively used.

Literature Review: Investigating Drug Transport at the Blood-Brain Barrier and the Effects of P-glycoprotein on the Brain Distribution of Drugs.

The blood-brain barrier (BBB) is a unique barrier that strictly regulates the entry of endogenous substrates and xenobiotics into the brain. This is due to its tight junctions and the array of transporters and metabolic enzymes that are expressed. The determination of brain concentrations in vivo is difficult, laborious and expensive which means that there is interest in developing predictive tools of brain distribution. Predicting brain concentrations is important even in early drug development to ensure efficacy of central nervous system (CNS) targeted drugs and safety of non-CNS drugs. The literature review covers the most common current in vitro, in vivo and in silico methods of studying transport into the brain, concentrating on transporter effects. The consequences of efflux mediated by p-glycoprotein, the most widely characterized transporter expressed at the BBB, is also discussed. The aim of the experimental study was to build a pharmacokinetic (PK) model to describe p-glycoprotein substrate drug concentrations in the brain using commonly measured in vivo parameters of brain distribution. The possibility of replacing in vivo parameter values with their in vitro counterparts was also studied. All data for the study was taken from the literature. A simple 2-compartment PK model was built using the Stella™ software. Brain concentrations of morphine, loperamide and quinidine were simulated and compared with published studies. Correlation of in vitro measured efflux ratio (ER) from different studies was evaluated in addition to studying correlation between in vitro and in vivo measured ER. A Stella™ model was also constructed to simulate an in vitro transcellular monolayer experiment, to study the sensitivity of measured ER to changes in passive permeability and Michaelis-Menten kinetic parameter values. Interspecies differences in rats and mice were investigated with regards to brain permeability and drug binding in brain tissue. Although the PK brain model was able to capture the concentration-time profiles for all 3 compounds in both brain and plasma and performed fairly well for morphine, for quinidine it underestimated and for loperamide it overestimated brain concentrations. Because the ratio of concentrations in brain and blood is dependent on the ER, it is suggested that the variable values cited for this parameter and its inaccuracy could be one explanation for the failure of predictions. Validation of the model with more compounds is needed to draw further conclusions. In vitro ER showed variable correlation between studies, indicating variability due to experimental factors such as test concentration, but overall differences were small. Good correlation between in vitro and in vivo ER at low concentrations supports the possibility of using of in vitro ER in the PK model. The in vitro simulation illustrated that in the simulation setting, efflux is significant only with low passive permeability, which highlights the fact that the cell model used to measure ER must have low enough paracellular permeability to correctly mimic the in vivo situation.