Alasdair Gray`s 1982 Janine (1984): a postmodernist scottish novel

Alasdair Gray is now an established figure in the Scottish literary scene and has numerous claims to be considered an important voice writing in English. First Lanark: A Life in Four Books (1981) and then 1982 Janine (1984) contributed to the recognition of Gray as one of the founding fathers of the new Scottish writing and as a figure of importance in international contemporary fiction due to his innovative, experimental and postmodernist novels. As the title of this dissertation - “Alasdair Gray’s 1982 Janine (1984): A Postmodernist Scottish Novel” - suggests, it aims at analysing the author’s second novel, 1982 Janine (1984), in a thematic and formal perspective, in order to justify the choice of the terms - Postmodernist and Scottish - to classify this novel. 1982 Janine projects a world through Jock McLeish’s mind and is a powerful stream-of-consciousness narrative. Jock is an alcoholic who lives a personal crisis and, therefore, tries to escape from his depressing reality through sexual fantasies and political diatribes. During a single night in a Scottish hotel room, he drinks and dreams, and spends the whole night alone with his fantasies and fears, his memories and hopes. In Chapter 11, the most daring experimental section of the novel, Jock attempts to commit suicide by taking an overdose of tablets with alcohol but fails. Following this, he decides to review his life and make for a new beginning; the novel thus closing with an optimistic note. Also, the narrative is based on a constant interweaving of sex fantasy with political satire, that is, it is through his protagonist that Gray manages to convey the state of Scotland as well as the concerns and aspirations of the Scottish people and then, proceed to a political and social critique. This dissertation appears structured in three chapters. In Chapter I - “Alasdair Gray: A Postmodernist Scottish Writer” - I present Gray as a powerful postmodernist writer who also sees himself as a Scottish author, and more particularly as a Glaswegian, who concentrates on Scottish subject matter in his literary work. In a first section, I offer a brief survey of the Scottish literary scene from the fourteenth to the twentieth century, in order to understand Gray’s choice of setting and themes and to check his influence or indebtedness to previous Scottish authors. As 1982 Janine is also a good example of selfconscious experimental writing, in a second section, I present various seminal fictional works that introduced and developed experimentalism in British fiction, in order to evaluate the influence of modernist developments in form and technique on recent experimental writing. The third section consists of an introduction to Gray’s work for he is not only a novelist, but also an artist, a playwright, a poet, an activist and a scholar. Chapter II - “Postmodernist Features in 1982 Janine” - aims at listing and examining the postmodernist devices that the novel includes, in what content and form are concerned. On the one hand, the use of a developed type of the modernist stream of consciousness, the presence of a protagonist who feels entrapped in a specific system, the quest for freedom, the incoherence and fragmentation of time, the nonchronological order of the narrative, the blending of fantasy and “reality”, as well as the importance of the Scottish material are definitely current aspects within postmodernist literature that can be found in Gray’s novel. On the other hand, the handling of literary self-conscious devices, such as typographical experimentation, presence of metafiction and intertextuality, and inclusion of an Epilogue, are likewise among recurrent postmodernist features. As the title - “A Narratological Analysis of 1982 Janine” - evidences, Chapter III offers a description of the mechanics of the narrative and its functioning in order to better understand the narrative technique of postmodernist fiction. This study is based primarily on Gérard Genette’s theoretical framework and terminology, presented in Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, an analytical tool that allows me to provide a more objective and scientific analysis. Hence, I follow the Genettian division of narrative discourse in Time, Mood and Voice while examining the novel. Finally, I proceed to a description of the intertextual relationships 1982 Janine establishes with other texts.

Structural and morphological changes in Poly(caprolactone)/poly(vinyl chloride) blends caused by UV irradiation

Films made from a blend of poly(epsilon-caprolactone) and poly(vinyl chloride) (PCL/PVC) retained high crystallinity in a segregated PCL phase. Structural and morphological changes produced when the films were exposed to high potency ultraviolet (UV) irradiation for 10 h were measured by UV-Vis spectroscopy (UV-Vis), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). They were different to those observed with homopolymer PCL and PVC films treated under the same conditions. The FTIR spectra of the PCL/PVC blend suggest that blending decreased the susceptibility of the PCL to crystallize when irradiated. Similarly, although scanning electron micrographs of PCL showed evidence of growth of crystalline domains, particularly after UV irradiation, the images of PCL/PVC were fairly featureless. It is apparent that the degradation behavior is strongly influenced by the interaction of the two polymers in the amorphous phase.

The influence of soil and landfill leachate microorganisms in the degradation of PVC/PCL films cast from DMF

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Reintegração dos finos provenientes do beneficiamento de argila no processo de produção de revestimentos via seca

Na região de Rio Claro (SP), localiza-se o Pólo Cerâmico de Santa Gertrudes, responsável por cerca de 50% da produção nacional de revestimentos. Durante o beneficiamento da argila e preparação da massa, cerca de 2 a 3% argila fina é colocada em suspensão no ar, sendo quase toda retida nos filtros de manga. Esse material fino, por problemas de homogeneização ou tecnológico, representa perda de material e se constitui em um potencial agente de contaminação do ar e da água, necessitando ser armazenado. A presente pesquisa buscou viabilizar o aproveitamento do pó retido nos filtros, no próprio processo, através da granulação da massa por aspersão de barbotina preparada com o pó. Investigaram-se a composição ideal da barbotina e a influência dessa metodologia no produto final, comparando a massa granulada por aspersão com a massa-padrão.

Cogasification of solid fuels

High efficiency gas turbine based systems, utility deregulation and more stringent environmental regulations strongly favor the use of natural gas over coal and other solid fuels in new electricity generators. Solid fuels could continue to compete, however, if a low cost gasifier fed by low cost feedstocks can be coupled with a gas turbine system. We examine on-site gasification of coal with other domestic fuels in an indirectly heated gasifier as a strategy to lower the costs of solid fuel systems. The systematics of gaseous pyrolysis yields assembled with the help of thermal measurement data and molecular models suggests blending carbonaceous fuels such as coal, coke or char with oxygenated fuels such as biomass, RDF, MSW, or dried sewage sludge. Such solid fuel blending can, with the help of inexpensive catalysts, achieve an optimum balance of volatiles, heating values and residual char thus reducing the technical demands upon the gasifier. Such simplifications should lower capital and operating costs of the gasifier to the mutual benefit of both solid fuel communities.

Thermal analysis of conductive blends of PVDF and poly(o-methoxyaniline)

The thermal behavior of blends of poly(vinylidene fluoride), or PVDF, and poly(o-methoxyaniline) doped with toluene sulfonic acid was studied by thermogravimetic analysis, electrical conductivity measurements, differential scanning calorimetry, X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. Blends with thermal and electrical conductivity stabler than the conductive polymer alone were obtained. Nevertheless, degradation occurs after a long period of time (500 h) at high temperatures. The possible association of the conductivity decay with dopant loss, degradation and structural and morphological changes of the blend is discussed. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd.

Development of starch biobased and biodegradable plastics for their use in trays for food-packaging

This research work develops new methods to produce biodegradable starch-based trays for the purpose of replacing expanded polystyrene in the food packaging market. The starch based biopolymers present several drawbacks like poor mechanical properties and very high density. In order to overcome these drawbacks two research lines have been set up: blending thermoplastic starch with biobased reinforcements from agricultural wastes like barley straw and grape wastes, and testing the foamability of these materials with a Microwave-foaming method.

Three-dimensional modeling and highly refined mesh generation of the aorta artery and its tunics

This paper describes strategies and techniques to perform modeling and automatic mesh generation of the aorta artery and its tunics (adventitia, media and intima walls), using open source codes. The models were constructed in the Blender package and Python scripts were used to export the data necessary for the mesh generation in TetGen. The strategies proposed are able to provide meshes of complicated and irregular volumes, with a large number of mesh elements involved (12,000,000 tetrahedrons approximately). These meshes can be used to perform computational simulations by Finite Element Method (FEM). © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.

Biodegradability of PP/PHBV (70/30) blend films

This study aimed to investigate the biodegradation of polypropylene/ poly(hydroxybutyrate-co-hydroxyvalerate) (PP/PHBV) blend (70/30, w/w) films in soil, monitoring the evolution of CO2 using the respirometric method. The polymeric films were incubated at 28°C ± 2°C for 180 days in biometer flasks, and the sequence of biodegradation percentage was PP/PHBV (70/30) > PP, that is, 15% and 0%, respectively. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction measurements showed that biodegradation occurs in the blend PP/PHBV interphases. Preferentially, the microbial action occurs in the fraction of the biodegradable polymer (PHBV), and it influences the PP fraction morphology, which showed some significant changes in the monomer unit sequences and the organization of the chains. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Análise multivariada no monitoramento do processo de produção de óleo diesel numa refinaria de petróleo

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Os romances gráficos: inspiração literária, observações sociais e a estética de Posy Simmonds

Pós-graduação em História - FCLAS

Música, educação e indústria cultural: o loteamento do espaço sonoro no espaço escolar

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Placas cerâmicas para revestimento de baixa absorção de água e estabilidade dimensional confeccionadas por moagem a seco usando o material da formação Corumbataí

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Competências informacionais em gestão de bibliotecas na Universidade Federal do Pará

A competência informacional dos profissionais bibliotecários que atuam como gestores das bibliotecas que compõem o Sistema de Bibliotecas da Universidade Federal do Pará foi o objeto de estudo que se analisa nesta dissertação. Quais são as competências em informação requeridas aos bibliotecários que atuam como diretores junto às bibliotecas do Sistema de Bibliotecas da Universidade Federal do Pará? Quais dessas competências já fazem parte do cotidiano de trabalho e quais precisam ser desenvolvidas por esses gestores? Foram as questões que nortearam esta dissertação. A pesquisa foi alicerçada em procedimentos conjugando abordagens quantitativas e qualitativas, conduzidos, primeiramente, por um estudo exploratório, utilizando um questionário com perguntas dirigidas a esses profissionais – bibliotecários e gestores. Ouviu-se cinco desses bibliotecários, escolhidos de acordo com a representatividade e estágio de desenvolvimento dessas bibliotecas, utilizando nesse momento a metodologia da História de vida. Os dados obtidos e sua análise permitiram conhecer quem são esses bibliotecários gestores, as competências que assumem possuir, seu perfil, suas dificuldades mais recorrentes suas funções e trabalhos, que desenvolvem e quais os recursos ou práticas que utilizam para se capacitarem e se manterem atualizados no exercício do cargo e da profissão. Os resultados da pesquisa confirmam a ausência de uma preparação, por menor que seja para o exercício de funções gerenciais de bibliotecas e apontam para a necessidade de se criar programas de formação de competência informacional voltado para esses profissionais e dessa maneira suprir as lacunas hoje existentes.

Funcionalidade das parábolas e das imagens em artigos de opinião: uma proposta de leitura

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)