Gory

Poetry by Ariel Gordo

Brushfire

“Brushfire” concerns itself with how people use urban forests, from indecent exposure to poaching to teenage drinking party-bonfires that get out of control. Though it could be construed as a manifesto on walking-in-the-woods, it also touches on some of the conflicts inherent in urban/nature experiences

Potentialities and constraints in the relation between social innovation and public policies: some lessons from South America

Social innovation (SI) can offer alternative forms of organization and novel solutions to complex problems faced by contemporary societies. As governments face increasing pressures from mounting societal challenges, it is assumed that SI can provide bottom-up solutions in ways that can create transformative change. However, the dialectic relation between bottom-up initiatives and government can be difficult and sometimes contradictory. Even more, assumptions about the diminishing powers of government can be misleading and overstress the role of SI. Based on the study of the recent South American experience, we have departed from this assumption, seeking to understand what the role of public policies as initiators or supporters of SI could be. We analyzed two top-down initiatives promoted by public policies that ultimately fostered SI in Argentina, the subsistence agriculture “Pro-Huerta” program and the policies of the National Technology and Social Innovation Program, and one complementary case study of a bottom-up SI experience in Brazil, the One Million Cisterns Program, which was later inserted into public policies. Together, these cases have allowed us to understand the potentialities and limitations of SI and the kind of dialectic relations they established with public policies. In particular, we have considered how public policies can foster and support SI.Fil: Gordon, Ariel. Universidad Nacional de Quilmes. Departamento de Economía y Administracion; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Becerra, Lucas Dardo. Universidad Nacional de Quilmes. Centro de Estudios e Investigación. Instituto de Estudios Sobre la Ciencia y Tecnología; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Fressoli, Juan Mariano. Centro de Investigaciones para la Transformación; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Co-editors Notes: Moving on Land? Choose Your Instrument

Editorial Introduction to The Goose Volume 20, Issue 1 (2023)

Solution of a statistical mechanics model for pulse formation in lasers

We present a rigorous statistical-mechanics theory of nonlinear many mode laser systems. An important example is the passively mode-locked laser that promotes pulse operation when a saturable absorber is placed in the cavity. It was shown by Gordon and Fischer [1] that pulse formation is a first-order phase transition of spontaneous ordering of modes in an effective "thermodynamic" system, in which intracavity noise level is the effective temperature. In this paper we present a rigorous solution of a model of passive mode locking. We show that the thermodynamics depends on a single parameter, and calculate exactly the mode-locking point. We find the phase diagram and calculate statistical quantities, including the dependence of the intracavity power on the gain saturation function, and finite size corrections near the transition point. We show that the thermodynamics is independent of the gain saturation mechanism and that it is correctly reproduced by a mean field calculation. The outcome is a new solvable statistical mechanics system with an unstable self-interaction accompanied by a natural global power constraint, and an exact description of an important many mode laser system.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, RevTe