Understanding the Underlying Principles of the Short Film

This chapter explores the types of story possible within short films, and how often there can be confusion and uncertainty, particularly amongst student filmmakers, about what a short film really is. In order to better understand this, this chapter outlines a series of underlying principles about short film story design that, we argue, are integral to the initial stages of conceiving such films. Before script development takes place, we argue that realistic thinking about what the short film can deliver in terms of story, characters, scope and dramatic question, will result in a screen work that is not only feasible for student filmmakers to produce, but is also more likely to increase an audience’s emotional engagement with the film. Drawing on a range of multi-award-winning contemporary short films to illustrate these principles, we discuss the relationship between content and form in this genre, leading to a better understanding of the parameters within which a student filmmaker might work. While not presenting these parameters as strict and unbreakable, we argue that knowing what has worked well for others, and what audiences expect from the short film form, provides a solid basis from which to begin conceptualising a short film

Random planar graphs and the London street network

In this paper we analyse the street network of London both in its primary and dual representation. To understand its properties, we consider three idealised models based on a grid, a static random planar graph and a growing random planar graph. Comparing the models and the street network, we find that the streets of London form a self-organising system whose growth is characterised by a strict interaction between the metrical and informational space. In particular, a principle of least effort appears to create a balance between the physical and the mental effort required to navigate the city

Physical Electronics and Surface Physics

Contains research objectives, summary of research and reports on three research projects.National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Grant NGR-22-009-091)M.I.T. Cabot Solar Energy FundJoint Services Electronics Programs (U. S. Army, U.S. Navy, and U. S. Air Force) under Contract DA 28-043-AMC-02536(E

Double radiative pion capture on hydrogen and deuterium and the nucleon's pion cloud

We report measurements of double radiative capture in pionic hydrogen and pionic deuterium. The measurements were performed with the RMC spectrometer at the TRIUMF cyclotron by recording photon pairs from pion stops in liquid hydrogen and deuterium targets. We obtained absolute branching ratios of $(3.02 \pm 0.27 (stat.) \pm 0.31 (syst.)) \times 10^{-5}$ for hydrogen and $(1.42 \pm ^{0.09}_{0.12} (stat.) \pm 0.11 (syst.)) \times 10^{-5}$ for deuterium, and relative branching ratios of double radiative capture to single radiative capture of $(7.68 \pm 0.69(stat.) \pm 0.79(syst.)) \times 10^{-5}$ for hydrogen and $(5.44 \pm^{0.34}_{0.46}(stat.) \pm 0.42(syst.)) \times 10^{-5}$ for deuterium. For hydrogen, the measured branching ratio and photon energy-angle distributions are in fair agreement with a reaction mechanism involving the annihilation of the incident $\pi^-$ on the $\pi^+$ cloud of the target proton. For deuterium, the measured branching ratio and energy-angle distributions are qualitatively consistent with simple arguments for the expected role of the spectator neutron. A comparison between our hydrogen and deuterium data and earlier beryllium and carbon data reveals substantial changes in the relative branching ratios and the energy-angle distributions and is in agreement with the expected evolution of the reaction dynamics from an annihilation process in S-state capture to a bremsstrahlung process in P-state capture. Lastly, we comment on the relevance of the double radiative process to the investigation of the charged pion polarizability and the in-medium pion field.Comment: 44 pages, 7 tables, 13 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Effects of the Neutron Spin-Orbit Density on Nuclear Charge Density in Relativistic Models

The neutron spin-orbit density contributes to the nuclear charge density as a relativistic effect. The contribution is enhanced by the effective mass stemming from the Lorentz-scalar potential in relativistic models. This enhancement explains well the difference between the cross sections of elastic electron scattering off $^{40}$Ca and $^{48}$Ca which was not reproduced in non-relativistic models. The spin-orbit density will be examined in more detail in electron scattering off unstable nuclei which would be available in the future.Comment: 4 pages with 3 eps figures, revte

Limits on the low energy antinucleon-nucleus annihilations from the Heisenberg principle

We show that the quantum uncertainty principle puts some limits on the effectiveness of the antinucleon-nucleus annihilation at very low energies. This is caused by the fact that the realization a very effective short-distance reaction process implies information on the relative distance of the reacting particles. Some quantitative predictions are possible on this ground, including the approximate A-independence of antinucleon-nucleus annihilation rates.Comment: 10 pages, no figure

Laws of Population Growth

An important issue in the study of cities is defining a metropolitan area, as different definitions affect the statistical distribution of urban activity. A commonly employed method of defining a metropolitan area is the Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA), based on rules attempting to capture the notion of city as a functional economic region, and is constructed using experience. The MSA is time-consuming and is typically constructed only for a subset (few hundreds) of the most highly populated cities. Here, we introduce a new method to designate metropolitan areas, denoted the "City Clustering Algorithm" (CCA). The CCA is based on spatial distributions of the population at a fine geographic scale, defining a city beyond the scope of its administrative boundaries. We use the CCA to examine Gibrat's law of proportional growth, postulating that the mean and standard deviation of the growth rate of cities are constant, independent of city size. We find that the mean growth rate of a cluster utilizing the CCA exhibits deviations from Gibrat's law, and that the standard deviation decreases as a power-law with respect to the city size. The CCA allows for the study of the underlying process leading to these deviations, shown to arise from the existence of long-range spatial correlations in the population growth. These results have socio-political implications, such as those pertaining to the location of new economic development in cities of varied size.Comment: 30 pages, 8 figure

Motherhood, Moral Authority and the Charismatic Matriarch in the Aftermath of Lethal Violence

Images of maternal suffering are an evocative and powerful means of communication in a world where the private grief of victims has increasingly become subject to commodification and public consumption. This article looks at the influence of bereaved mothers as symbols of respect, peace and dignity in the aftermath of violence, and as a result their persuasive presence in family activism. Drawing upon two case studies, this article explores the importance of victims’ stories in public life and, in particular, the presence of the charismatic matriarch in creating communities of solidarity, raising awareness of harms that have previously gone unheard and prompting policy change. It considers the ‘canonical’ story of the mother in public life and concludes by arguing that more attention should be paid to victims’ stories and their influence on policy-making, politics and eventually in becoming public grievances

Households’ responses to spousal job loss: ‘all change’ or ‘carry on as usual’?

Economic theory suggests that when a primary earner within a couple loses their job, one potential response is for the secondary earner to seek additional paid work to bolster their household finances. The empirical quantitative evidence regarding any such ‘added worker effect’ is mixed, and, to investigate why this might be, the article explores processes behind couples’ responses to job loss. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews conducted with a purposive sample selected from the Understanding Society Innovation Panel, the analysis examines: (a) anticipation surrounding job loss and job search responses; (b) the extent to which couples adopt long- or short-term labour market perspectives; and (c) whether couples seek to preserve their established division of paid and unpaid labour or re-configure their joint labour supply. Findings indicate that the use of additional spousal labour is only one response among many alternatives and it is typically invoked in cases of serious financial hardship. </jats:p