The Ties That Bind and Bless the Soul : Grace and Noir in Schrader\u27s Light Sleeper

At the end of Paul Schrader\u27s Light Sleeper, drug dealer and protagonist John LeTour (Willem Dafoe) sits facing his friend and ex-boss Ann (Susan Sarandon). Awaiting sentencing for an unspecified conviction (presumably dealing and manslaughter), LeTour is still optimistic. He takes Ann\u27s hand, smiles at her and says \u27I\u27ve been looking forward. She smiles back at him and answers, Strange how things work. As he kisses her hand and the film moves to its final frame, LeTour\u27s romantic voice-over (done by singer Michael Been of the rock group, The Call ) sings an important line in the story: All our eyes have seen, all our arms embrace/ All that lives and breathes, each beloved face/ Standing at the door, the book is open wide/ Now I seal my fate, now I step inside. Both the final exchange between LeTour and Ann and LeTour\u27s final voice-over are paradoxical. LeTour\u27s final statement asserts his participation in time\u27s forward movement. Though the promised action is mere observation, it still ascribes significance to his agency, to its influence on his future. Ann, while desiring the same future as LeTour, attributes to it a different contingency, fate. This coupling of two seemingly incongruent forces is described in LeTour\u27s voice-over. With the line standing at the door, the book is open wide, LeTour places himself at the point of infinite possibility. But entering that possibility, stepping inside, hinges on the coupling mentioned above. He must seal his fate, he must actively engage in the negation of his action. In doing so, he will free himself from his isolation, joining all that lives and breathes. It is my contention that LeTour\u27s struggle to reach this point constitutes the film\u27s dramatic thrust. To free himself from his existential paralysis, LeTour must neither passively accept fate nor actively oppose it. He must, by participating in that fate, help transform it into grace, bring meaning to what was previously arbitrary. Schrader brings conflict to this objective through the use of, and play with, film noir tropes: existentialism, the domestic space, the femme fatale and the pursuing past. As neo-noir hero himself, LeTour attains grace by moving past these elements, by shifting from existential detachment to sacred involvement

Particle acceleration by turbulent magnetohydro-dynamic reconnection

Test particles in a two dimensional, turbulent MHD simulation are found to undergo significant acceleration. The magnetic field configuration is a periodic sheet pinch which undergoes reconnection. The test particles are trapped in the reconnection region for times of order an Alfven transit time in the large electric fields that characterize the turbulent reconnection process at the relatively large magnetic Reynolds number used in the simulation. The maximum speed attained by these particles is consistent with an analytic estimate which depends on the reconnection electric field, the Alfven speed, and the ratio of Larmor period to the Alfven transit time

Most probable magnetohydrostatic equilibria for tokamaks and reversed field pinches

The determination of magnetohydrostatic equilibria usually requires that two of the equilibrium functions be given. as there is usually no a priori basis for specifying the form of these two functions, the functions and the equilibria they determine may be considered random.;In this dissertation, the author reviews a recent statistical method for determining the equilibrium of an axially symmetric cylindrical plasma which is most probable (in the maximum entropy sense) given four global constraints (i.e., energy, magnetic helicity, longitudinal magnetic flux, and longitudinal current flux). Previous results from this model have been limited to non-negative random equilibrium functions (B(,z), J(,z), where B is the magnetic field and J is the current density), and to analytically derived solutions of the determining equations in which one constraint (magnetic helicity) has been relaxed.;The present work extends these results to the fully constrained problem by presenting numerically computed solutions of the governing equations. Some of these solutions are specialized to values of the constraints appropriate to tokamaks. States which are approximately force-free (B = J x const.) are shown to exist as solutions to the most probable state equations.;A further extension of the model is attempted in order to alleviate the restriction to non-negative random equilibrium functions. The extended model is applied to the problem of finding most probable equilibria with reversed magnetic fields. An examination of solutions constrained to different values of energy and magnetic helicity shows a tendency toward low pressure equilibria when the energy-to-helicity ratio is lowered. This result is consistent with the Bessel function model of reverse-field equilibria in which dynamical relaxation of the energy with respect to a fixed magnetic helicity results in pressureless, Bellel function equilibria.;A study is made of the influence of the pinch ratio, an experimental parameter, on the degree of magnetic field reversal in the most probable state model. The dependence of solutions on this parameter is found to be consistent qualitatively with experiments

Higgs Boson Decays into Light Gravitinos

We study decays of the neutral and charged Higgs bosons of the minimal supersymmetric standard model into a very light gravitino and a neutralino or chargino. Present experimental constraints already imply that the lighter scalar Higgs boson can only have a very small branching ratio into this mode. However, if the gravitino mass is below $\sim 0.5$ eV, the heavier neutral and charged Higgs boson decays into a gravitino can be important or even dominant. We discuss the resulting signature for associate production of the heavy CP-even and the CP-odd states at future $e^+ e^-$ colliders, and comment on Higgs boson production at hadron colliders.Comment: 11 pages, 4 embedded figures; LaTeX with equation.sty and epsf.st

The transition to online psychotherapy during the pandemic: a qualitative study on patients' perspectives

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has substantially increased online psychotherapies due to the impossibility of participating in vis-a-vis settings. In the last years, research about online therapy has been quickly growing. However, until now, few studies investigated patients' perspective about the transition to online psychotherapy and, specifically, no qualitative research in group therapy has been done on this topic. This study aimed to explore the experience of 51 patients (39 group patients and 12 from individual psychotherapies) who continued psychotherapy in the online setting during the COVID-19 outbreak. A structured online questionnaire with open answers investigated the following topics: setting online, effectiveness, psychotherapy relationship, specific dynamics of online psychotherapy. Patients' answers were analysed by means of Consensual Qualitative Research, modified version (CQRM), an inductive method that allows analysing a large sample and relatively brief written answers. The results show the impact of shift to online platforms on patients and explore how easy or difficult it is for them to adapt to therapeutic processes are in online therapy (vs in-person therapy), by highlighting potential barriers and resources to practice implementation. Participants' responses have been arranged into three main domains: setting online, content/effectiveness of online therapy and therapeutic relationship. A fourth domain, specific for online group therapy, collected responses referred to the changes perceived regarding the group dynamics. From the patient's perspective, online therapy is effective and satisfying. Patients perceived a positive quality of therapeutic relationship in online setting, whereas produced more controversial judgments concerned the changes due to the online setting. Finally, patients in group therapy gave more attention and importance in showing and seeing private personal spaces than the ones in individual therapy

Particle Acceleration in Multiple Dissipation Regions

The sharp magnetic discontinuities which naturally appear in solar magnetic flux tubes driven by turbulent photospheric motions are associated with intense currents. \citet{Par83} proposed that these currents can become unstable to a variety of microscopic processes, with the net result of dramatically enhanced resistivity and heating (nanoflares). The electric fields associated with such ``hot spots'' are also expected to enhance particle acceleration. We test this hypothesis by exact relativistic orbit simulations in strong random phase magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence which is forming localized super-Dreicer Ohm electric fields ($E_\Omega/E_D$ = $10^2 ... 10^5$) occurring in 2..15 % of the volume. It is found that these fields indeed yield a large amplification of acceleration of electrons and ions, and can effectively overcome the injection problem. We suggest in this article that nanoflare heating will be associated with sporadic particle acceleration.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, to appear in ApJ

Charged-Particle Motion in Electromagnetic Fields Having at Least One Ignorable Spatial Coordinate

We give a rigorous derivation of a theorem showing that charged particles in an arbitrary electromagnetic field with at least one ignorable spatial coordinate remain forever tied to a given magnetic-field line. Such a situation contrasts the significant motions normal to the magnetic field that are expected in most real three-dimensional systems. It is pointed out that, while the significance of the theorem has not been widely appreciated, it has important consequences for a number of problems and is of particular relevance for the acceleration of cosmic rays by shocks.Comment: 7 pages, emulateapj format, including 1 eps figure, to appear in The Astrophysical Journal, Dec. 10 1998 issu

Low incidence but poor prognosis of complicated coeliac disease: A retrospective multicentre study.

Abstract BACKGROUND: Coeliac disease is a chronic enteropathy characterized by an increased mortality caused by its complications, mainly refractory coeliac disease, small bowel carcinoma and abdominal lymphoma. Aim of the study was to study the epidemiology of complications in patients with coeliac disease. METHODS: Retrospective multicenter case-control study based on collection of clinical and laboratory data. The incidence of complicated coeliac disease was studied among coeliac patients directly diagnosed in four Italian centres. Patients referred to these centres after a diagnosis of coeliac disease and/or complicated coeliac disease in other hospitals were therefore excluded. RESULTS: Between 1/1999 and 10/2011, 1840 adult coeliac patients were followed up for 7364.3 person-years. Fourteen developed complications. Since five patients died, at the end of the observation period (10/2011), the prevalence of complicated coeliac disease was 9/1835 (1/204, 0.49%, 95% CI 0.2-0.9%). The annual incidence of complicated coeliac disease in the study period was 14/7364 (0.2%, 95% CI 0.1-0.31%). Although complications tend to occur soon after the diagnosis of coeliac disease, Kaplan-Meier curve analysis showed that they can actually occur at any time after the diagnosis of coeliac disease. CONCLUSIONS: Complications of coeliac disease in our cohort were quite rare, though characterised by a very high mortality

Fourier Acceleration of Langevin Molecular Dynamics

Fourier acceleration has been successfully applied to the simulation of lattice field theories for more than a decade. In this paper, we extend the method to the dynamics of discrete particles moving in continuum. Although our method is based on a mapping of the particles' dynamics to a regular grid so that discrete Fourier transforms may be taken, it should be emphasized that the introduction of the grid is a purely algorithmic device and that no smoothing, coarse-graining or mean-field approximations are made. The method thus can be applied to the equations of motion of molecular dynamics (MD), or its Langevin or Brownian variants. For example, in Langevin MD simulations our acceleration technique permits a straightforward spectral decomposition of forces so that the long-wavelength modes are integrated with a longer time step, thereby reducing the time required to reach equilibrium or to decorrelate the system in equilibrium. Speedup factors of up to 30 are observed relative to pure (unaccelerated) Langevin MD. As with acceleration of critical lattice models, even further gains relative to the unaccelerated method are expected for larger systems. Preliminary results for Fourier-accelerated molecular dynamics are presented in order to illustrate the basic concepts. Possible extensions of the method and further lines of research are discussed.Comment: 11 pages, two illustrations included using graphic