from nothingness and going: Jackson Mac Low’s Numbered Asymmetries

In October of 1960, Jackson Mac Low created a system for generating poems called Asymmetries. The system evolved from his earlier chance poems to create a situation where poems could be “self-generating.” Over time, the system itself evolved, generating poems of endlessly varying content, each with its own self-contained features that could be translated into performance. These features were described in detail by Mac Low in his instructions for performance. However, like his poem-generating system, these instructions also evolved over time. Mac Low’s Asymmetries can be approached from many vantage points: as a reader, listener, performer; through a solo performance or simultaneity; through the original or evolved instructions; or through Mac Low’s copious documentation. Exploring these vantage points generates an evolution in one’s understanding of the poems and their openness or limits in the context of the many formats in which they can be realized.Where are the limits to Mac Low’s extraordinarily contingent compositional and performance scenarios? How do Mac Low’s countless performance scenarios impact the work’s identity? Mac Low’s creative processes pulled at the boundaries of the poem/score and show how a work can exist as a complex and evolving system that can have both clear boundaries and limitless possibilities

Computational Study of Polyelectrolyte Multilayer Films

Experimentalists have found that the growth of polyelectrolyte multilayer films are not always linear and can be exponential. The size of these films is very important in applications such as photovoltaics where exact depths are needed for ideal power eifficiency. This work is a computational study of such growth, attempting to find which conditions (such as length of the polyelectrolyte chains, solution densities and charge distributions) constitute the transition between exponential and linear growth. The study was performed using the GROMACS molecular dynamics simulation package and the Martini force field coarse graining method. The polyelectrolytes used were Polylysine cations and Polyglutamic Acid anions with different parameters, such as chain length, in each simulation. The simulation consisted of equilibrating a solution of polyelectrolytes and counter-ions in coarse grain water with periodic XY-boundaries onto a charged substrate at the Z=0 axis and then removing unbound matter. The next steps added solutions of alternating charges until the multilayer film is sufficiently grown. The rate at which the film grows was studied based on the depths of each layer, where a layer is defined as the polyelectrolytes bound during a single step

A Thermal Conduction Switch Based On Low Hysteresis Nitife Shape Memory Alloy Helical Springs

Shape memory alloy (SMA) actuators possess an inherent property of sensing a change in temperature and delivering significant force against external loads through a shape change resulting from a temperature-induced phase transformation. The utilization of a reversible trigonal (R-phase) to cubic phase transformation in NiTiFe SMAs allows for this strain recovery to occur with reduced hysteresis between the forward and reverse transformations. However, the magnitude of the strain recovery associated with the R-phase transformation is lower than that of the monoclinic to cubic phase transformation. The use of helical springs can compensate for this design constraint as they produce significant stroke when compared to straight elements such as thin strips and wires. This work reports on the development and implementation of NiTiFe helical springs in a low-hysteresis thermal conduction switch for advanced spaceport applications associated with NASA\u27s requirements for future lunar and Mars missions. Such a low-hysteresis thermal conduction switch can provide on-demand heat transfer between two reservoirs at different temperatures. © 2008 American Institute of Physics