Improving the near-field transmission efficiency of nano-optical transducers by tailoring the near-field sample

Despite research efforts to find a better nano-optical transducer for light localization and high transmission efficiency for existing and emerging plasmonic applications, there has not been much consideration on improving the near-field optical performance of the system by engineering the near-field sample. In this work, we demonstrate the impact of tailoring the near-field sample by studying an emerging plasmonic application, namely heat-assisted magnetic recording. Basic principles of Maxwell's and heat transfer equations are utilized to obtain a magnetic medium with superior optical and thermal performance compared to a conventional magnetic medium

Patterned medium for heat assisted magnetic recording

Heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) a potential solution to extend the limits of conventional magnetic recording. In HAMR, the heating of the recording medium is achieved with a near-field optical transducer. Although the literature suggests novel transducers, there is little consideration of the optical and thermal aspects of the magnetic medium. In this letter we suggest a recording medium that provides a significant enhancement in optical absorption and localized heating. The thermal profiles of the proposed medium and the conventional medium are compared using finite element method solutions of Maxwell’s and the heat transfer equations

Book Review

COURTIERS OF THE MARBLE PALACE is a compelling, informative book. As much as anything, it is a tremendous informational source for anyone interested in the Supreme Court. It is evident that the author has thoroughly researched the topic and provided the reader with a factual view of the past and present responsibilities of a Supreme Court law clerk. Because Peppers relies on principal-agent theory to develop his hypotheses and used exhaustive research to prove them, the book also appears to be objective

More Uncertainty After Daimler AG v. Bauman: A Response to Professors Cornett and Hoffheimer

In Good-Bye Significant Contacts: General Personal Jurisdiction After Daimler AG v. Bauman, Professors Judy M. Cornett and Michael H. Hoffheimer identify a number of legal issues that will become the focus of litigation after Daimler. This Response identifies an additional, perhaps surprising issue that is currently being litigated in the wake of Daimler AG v. Bauman. In the lower federal courts, defendants who have litigated cases on the merits without raising lack of personal jurisdiction as a defense are filing motions to dismiss and arguing that they are not subject to general jurisdiction in the forum under Daimler’s “at home” standard. The question is whether these defendants have waived their jurisdictional defense under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12 because it was “available” to them in 2011 after Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown was decided. This Response explains the doctrine of waiver under Rule 12 and examines three cases that have addressed waiver under Goodyear and Daimler. This Response then asserts that defendants who failed to argue that they were not “at home” in the forum after Goodyear waived their jurisdictional defense and should not be permitted to raise it under Daimler

Reckoning with Remembrance: the Contemporary Ballad and the Black Tradition

Contribution to "Boundary Conditions of the Ballad" panel. Scott Challener, Rutgers U, presiding

Distinguishing Certification from Abstention in Diversity Cases: Postponement Versus Abdication of the Duty to Exercise Jurisdiction

This Article argues that a federal court does not abdicate its duty to exercise its jurisdiction when it certifies a question in a diversity case; instead, the court merely postpones the exercise of its jurisdiction. Thus, federal courts need not limit certification in diversity cases to exceptional circumstances

Note, Civil Forfeiture and Innocent Owners

Although forfeiture is an ancient practice, its constitutional validity has only recently been seriously questioned. Historically, the Supreme Court has relied on a legal fiction-that the property itself is guilty-to confiscate property without regard to the Constitution. Cloaking itself in the guilty property fiction, the Court has virtually ignored the property owner\u27s culpability. In Bennis, the Court decided whether an owner\u27s interest in property is subject to forfeiture when the owner entrusts the property to a party who uses it to commit a crime, even if the owner has no knowledge of the illegal use

Rehearing “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” in an Era of Global Decolonization: ASK YOUR MAMA’s Jazz Poetics

A brief talk for a roundtable on the centenary of Langston Hughes's "The Negro Speaks of Rivers.

The New Border

This course is a study of the literature of the U.S.-Mexico border from the 1980s to the present. We begin with Gloria Anzaldúa’s foundational texts, Borderlands / La Frontera, and her landmark feminist anthology, co-edited with Cherríe Moraga, This Bridge Called My Back: Radical Writings by Women of Color. We then consider the legacies and afterlives of this body of work in more recent literature, from Roberto Bolaño’s obsession with femicide and the borderlands to Carmen Boullosa’s Texas: The Great Theft, Yuri Herrera’s Signs Preceding the End of the World, and Valeria Luiselli’s The Lost Children Archive. We’ll also spend significant time with contemporary poets, including Daniel Borzutzky, Juan Felipe Herrera, Valerie Martínez, Wendy Trevino, and Javier Zamora. How does this literature understand the changing dynamics of what scholar John Alba Cutler calls “the new border,” a zone defined by an increasingly punitive regime of militarization, criminalization, mass detention and mass deportation? How does this literature disclose the structures of relation that underlie the mediation and spectacularization of the border? How does it respond to the ideologies of white supremacy and anti-Mexican and anti-Latino racism? More basically, what theories and methods of reading does the literature of the new border demand? Where does it direct our attention? While our main focus will be on how the literature of the new border asks us to think about the U.S.-Mexico border, we will conclude by examining how this literature has changed as the border zone has expanded into Central and South America—and beyond. With this final turn, we will extend our examination to recent work that explores the nature of the relationship between the United States and the Americas

Protecting Cats and Dogs in Order to Protect Humans: Making the Case for a Felony Companion Animal Statute in Mississippi

During the 2010 session of the Mississippi legislature, Senator Billy Hewes (R-Gulfport) introduced Senate Bill No. 2623 which, inter alia, made it a felony to with malice torture, mutilate, maim, burn, starve, disfigure or kill any domesticated dog or cat. The penalty for a conviction under the proposed companion animal statute was one to five years in prison and a fine of $1500 to$10,000. Senate Bill No. 2623 passed the Senate but failed in the House, largely because the Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation argued that it would be harmful to Mississippi\u27s farming industry. This objection, along with the others that doomed Senate Bill No. 2623, reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the purposes of animal cruelty laws and, in particular, the crucial role that a felony penalty for malicious cruelty to cats and dogs could play in protecting all Mississippians. Thus, the goal of this Article is to demonstrate that the objections to Senate Bill No. 2623 were meritless and explain why Mississippi should enact a felony companion animal statute as well as other key provisions of Senate Bill No. 2623