Post-industrial robotics: the new tendency of digital fabrication for exploring responsive forms and materials through performance

The contribution proposes the experimental results of research on robotics manufacturing issues for the realization of informed architectural organisms on a 1:1 scale. The pavilions Fusta Robotics and Digital Urban Orchard and the technological system In.Flux represent the results of tests in which material, environmental and structural performance inform the computational process and the consequent materialization. The two pavilions, both wooden, constitute the physical implementation of different functional programs realised through a collaboration with industrial partners. Fusta Robotics is the result of a collaboration between industry and universities for the tectonic experimentation derived from the use of local non-engineered material. Digital Urban Orchard is the formal expression of a complex functional program arising from the relationship amongst form (shape), function and context for a new concept of socialization space and food production within the agenda at the self-sufficiency in Barcelona. Finally, through the In.Flux prototype, we investigated the relationship among formal generation, structural analysis and robotic manufacturing for the realization of concrete free-form structures. The analysis of the prototypes opens the debate on the role of IT in the post-digital era when the design process manifest through the control and management of the flow of information affecting the digital computation and fabrication and the material behaviour. The resulting theoretical assumption considers the architectural form as the result of a diagram of forces where the achievement of the performance is the driving parameter for the formal geometric exploration. The continuous variation resulting therefrom is informed by performance parameters that define a new aesthetic which represents together the manifestation of objectively measurable performance parameters and the power of the tool through which the form is generated

[Review of] Marion Wilson Starling. The Slave Narrative: Its Place in American History

This is another reprint of Marion Wilson Starling\u27s breakthrough study of the slave narrative, which she undertook for her Ph.D. dissertation at New York University in 1946 under the advisorship of Oscar Cargill. During the 1960s and 1970s when slave autobiography became a serious critical endeavor, many scholars referred to Starling\u27s thorough historical and literary research; however, her dissertation was not published until 1981. Then, Starling\u27s work became more readily available, and now the paperback edition allows this well-deserved book to reach a wider audience

Experimental determination of gravitomagnetic effects by means of ring lasers

A new experiment aimed to the detection of the gravito-magnetic Lense-Thirring effect at the surface of the Earth will be presented; the name of the experiment is GINGER. The proposed technique is based on the behavior of light beams in ring lasers, also known as gyrolasers. A three-dimensional array of ringlasers will be attached to a rigid monument; each ring will have a different orientation in space. Within the space-time of a rotating mass the propagation of light is indeed anisotropic; part of the anisotropy is purely kinematical (Sagnac effect), part is due to the interaction between the gravito-electric field of the source and the kinematical motion of the observer (de Sitter effect), finally there is a contribution from the gravito-magnetic component of the Earth (gravito-magnetic frame dragging or Lense-Thirring effect). In a ring laser a light beam traveling counterclockwise is superposed to another beam traveling in the opposite sense. The anisotropy in the propagation leads to standing waves with slightly different frequencies in the two directions; the final effect is a beat frequency proportional to the size of the instrument and its effective rotation rate in space, including the gravito-magnetic drag. Current laser techniques and the performances of the best existing ring lasers allow at the moment a sensitivity within one order of magnitude of the required accuracy for the detection of gravito-magnetic effects, so that the objective of GINGER is in the range of feasibility and aims to improve the sensitivity of a couple of orders of magnitude with respect to present. The experiment will be underground, probably in the Gran Sasso National Laboratories in Italy, and is based on an international collaboration among four Italian groups, the Technische Universitaet Muenchen and the University of Canterbury in Christchurch (NZ

A search for time-integrated CP violation in D0→h−h+D^{0} \rightarrow h^{-}h^{+} decays

The LHCb Collaboration has recently observed evidence of CP violation in neutral D meson decays. CP violation in the charm sector is generically expected to be very small in the Standard Model, but can be enhanced in many models of new physics. In this document we will present the results of a search for time-integrated \CP violation in $D^0 \rightarrow h^- h^+$ with $(h=K,\pi)$ decays, performed with around 0.6 fb$^{-1}$ of data collected by LHCb in 2011. The difference in CP asymmetry between $D^0 \rightarrow K^- K^+$ and $D^0 \rightarrow \pi^- \pi^+$, $\Delta A_{CP} = A_{CP}(K^- K^+) - A_{CP}(\pi^- \pi^+)$ is measured to be $\Delta A_{CP} = [-0.82 \pm 0.21 (stat.) \pm 0.11 (syst.)]$ . This differs from the hypothesis of CP conservation by 3.5 sigma.Comment: to appear in the proceedings of The 5th International Workshop on Charm Physics (Charm 2012

[Review of] David Pilgrim. Race Relations Above the Veil : Speeches, Essays, and Other Writings

This is mostly a collection of speeches delivered to high school and college students by Pilgrim, who teaches sociology at Saint Mary\u27s College/Notre Dame. A few of the talks were given to community and business groups in several Midwestern states, and thus each selection reflects the appropriate style and content level of the audience being addressed. The content of all the pieces, including the few essays and short stories, focuses on racial prejudice, but also deals with general biases pertaining to gender, ethnic group, and class