Physical Match: Unique Fracture Patterns in Wooden Popsicle Sticks

Physical match (or physical fit) evidence was considered reliable in court for years, until the Daubert case, which required standardized scientific methodology on all forensic evidence. Physical matching faces the same criticism as other forms of physical evidence (specifically, that it lacks a scientific foundation). Physical matching is based on the idea that when an object is fractured, the shape of each fragment is unique and it is not possible to recreate a fragment that is identical to any other. In this study, fifty wooden popsicle sticks were broken in half, the pieces were mixed, and then reconstructed using physical match analysis. Results of the study show that each broken fragment of the one hundred popsicle stick pieces was unique, which allowed them to be recognized and reconstructed

An open string analogue of Viterbo functoriality

Liouville domains are a special type of symplectic manifolds with boundary (they have an everywhere defined Liouville flow, pointing outwards along the boundary). Symplectic cohomology for Liouville domains was introduced by Cieliebak-Floer-Hofer-Wysocki and Vitero. The latter constructed a restriction (or transfer) map associated to an embedding of one Liouville domain into another. In this preprint, we look at exact Lagrangian submanifolds with Legendrian boundary inside a Liouville domain. The analogue of symplectic cohomology for such submanifolds is called "wrapped Floer cohomology". We construct an A_\infty-structure on the underlying wrapped Floer complex, and (under suitable assumptions) an A_\infty-homomorphism realizing the restriction to a Liouville subdomain. The construction of the A_\infty-structure relies on an implementation of homotopy direct limits, and involves some new moduli spaces which are solutions of generalized continuation map equations.Comment: 71 pages, 9 figures, minor revision correcting typographical errors and clarifying the exposition following a referee's comment

Camp Spurs Young Authors

Mindy Legard Larson ’95 taps the creativity of elementary students during an Author Camp for young writers

Crossing

the boy with the cherry-red, popsicle-stained mouth bends to draw a wobbly line in the sand. see this line? this side is for boys only. I blink slowly at him. once. twice. I decide that his cherry-red, popsicle-stained mouth is ugly

Voyager 25th Anniversary Poster

This poster was developed to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Voyager 1 and 2 launch. The learning objectives of the activity Voyager 1 and 2: Where Are You is to help students appreciate the great distances between the planets and their comparable sizes, view the solar system in three dimensions in a useful scale, and visualize the paths of the Voyager spacecraft and their distances and positions. Educational levels: Intermediate elementary, Middle school

Beauty as Pride: A Function of Agency

This is basically a paper about artistic evaluation and how multiple interpretations can give rise to inconsistent and conflicting meanings. Images like Joel-Peter Witkin’s First Casting for Milo (2004) challenge the viewer to look closely, understand the formal properties at work, and then extract a meaning that ultimately asks, Is the model exploited or empowered? Is Karen Duffy, pictured here, vulnerable and “enfreaked” or is she potentially subversive, transgressive, and perhaps self-empowered? I will offer an argument in agreement with artist/author/ performer Ann Millett-Gallant that favors the latter interpretation, but will augment and complicate the issue by also introducing a pointed question or two taken from a recent analysis by Cynthia Freeland on objectification. I judge the works by photographer Joel-Peter Witkin to be representations of disabled persons who are empowered through agency and pride, but I also worry about the risk of multiple, conflicting interpretations on the part of viewers who do not, or cannot, entertain such enlightened readings. Like second wave feminist views about pornography that depicted women in demeaning ways, or feminist critiques of Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party , Witkin’s photos can be judged as potentially offensive. But they are also objects of beauty—both in terms of aesthetic properties (they are magnificent studies in black and white, shadows, the human body, with many classical references) and because of the feeling of beauty and pride felt by the posers, who become performers of their own beauty and pride. I argue that beauty trumps offensiveness. Pride wins. But I’m not sure that everyone will agree

The Cowl - May 1, 2003 - Commencement Issue

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. May 1, 2003 - Commencement Issue. 8 pages