Walking and Wandering: Reconstructing Diasporic Subjectivity in T. C. Huo\u27s Land of Smiles and Lê Thi Diem Thúy’s The Gangster We Are All Looking For

Diaspora has often been defined as the condition of dispersal and displacement in which its members express minimal connections with their host country and always look to return to their ancestral homelands. However, from the literary representations in T. C. Huo’s Land of Smiles and Lê Thi Diem Thúy’s The Gangster We Are All Looking For, it is clear that members of the Southeast Asian diaspora determine to set root in their host country and refuse to be treated as temporary guests. This determination is warranted by their desire to redefine the contentious idea of home beyond cultural ancestry and geopolitical boundaries. Both authors utilize the trope of walking and wandering to debunk the essentialist conception based on the premise that one’s subjectivity is static, especially when it applies to diasporic members’ supposed sense of homelessness and the longing to return to their native countries. Rather than perpetuating the systemic labels onto diasporic members, such as homelessness, passivity, and powerlessness, through walking and wandering, the Southeast Asian refugees in the novels demonstrate the psychosomatic connections with their host country, take part in the pursuit of success, and declare an active, visible presence in their new homeland as fervent subjects who embrace opportunities to obtain material security in the United States

All-optical combiner-splitter and gating devices based on straight waveguides

A two-mode optical combiner-splitter device is designed based on all straight waveguides that maintains the integrity of the two modes during propagation and allows for an analytic analysis. The design analysis has the potential to improve the precision of the device fabrication. The design is used in an analytic optical gate based on a nonlinear Mach-Zehnder interferometer. The design reduces the size of a previously proposed device and simplifies its analysis

Learning Markov Decision Processes for Model Checking

Constructing an accurate system model for formal model verification can be both resource demanding and time-consuming. To alleviate this shortcoming, algorithms have been proposed for automatically learning system models based on observed system behaviors. In this paper we extend the algorithm on learning probabilistic automata to reactive systems, where the observed system behavior is in the form of alternating sequences of inputs and outputs. We propose an algorithm for automatically learning a deterministic labeled Markov decision process model from the observed behavior of a reactive system. The proposed learning algorithm is adapted from algorithms for learning deterministic probabilistic finite automata, and extended to include both probabilistic and nondeterministic transitions. The algorithm is empirically analyzed and evaluated by learning system models of slot machines. The evaluation is performed by analyzing the probabilistic linear temporal logic properties of the system as well as by analyzing the schedulers, in particular the optimal schedulers, induced by the learned models.Comment: In Proceedings QFM 2012, arXiv:1212.345

Tensile and impact properties of melt-blended nylon 6/ethylene-octene copolymer/graphene oxide nanocomposites.

The addition of stiff nanoparticles to a polymer matrix usually proves beneficial for the enhancement in stiffness and strength, however, the impact strength is usually lowered. Conversely, the use of elastomeric additives can enhance the toughness and impact strength but causes a reduction in overall stiffness and strength. To take advantage of the desirable effects of both additives, they may be simultaneously added to the host matrix. Graphene oxide (GO), along with a thermoplastic elastomer ethylene-octene copolymer (EOC), was chosen to be added to nylon 6 for the current investigation. Maleated EOC (EOC-g-MA) was used as a compatibilizer for this study. 3 wt% GO nanoparticles, 20 wt% ethylene-octene copolymer (EOC) and 3 wt% EOC-g-MA were added to nylon 6 to prepare the nylon 6/EOC/GO blend-based nanocomposites. A high shear rate screw running at 300 rpm was used for melt-blending with a twin-screw extruder. Increased stiffness and tensile strength were observed by the addition of GO nanoparticles while elongation at break, toughness and impact strength were lowered by the addition of GO. The addition of EOC and EOC-g-MA enhanced the elongation at break, toughness and impact strength. However, the stiffness and strength of nylon 6/EOC blend was lower than that of the neat nylon 6. The addition of GO nanoparticles and EOC to neat nylon 6 caused a reduction in its impact strength. However, simultaneous addition of EOC and EOC-g-MA to nylon 6 caused a significant increase in the impact strength compared to neat nylon 6 and yielded a nylon 6/EOC/EOC-g-MA bend with the highest impact strength. The addition of GO nanoparticles to this blend, however, again caused a significant reduction in the impact strength. Nylon 6/EOC/EOC-g-MA blend showed the highest toughness and impact strength. Simultaneous addition of EOC and GO helped achieve a balanced stiffness and toughness

Theory of hopping conduction in arrays of doped semiconductor nanocrystals

The resistivity of a dense crystalline array of semiconductor nanocrystals (NCs) depends in a sensitive way on the level of doping as well as on the NC size and spacing. The choice of these parameters determines whether electron conduction through the array will be characterized by activated nearest-neighbor hopping or variable-range hopping (VRH). Thus far, no general theory exists to explain how these different behaviors arise at different doping levels and for different types of NCs. In this paper we examine a simple theoretical model of an array of doped semiconductor NCs that can explain the transition from activated transport to VRH. We show that in sufficiently small NCs, the fluctuations in donor number from one NC to another provide sufficient disorder to produce charging of some NCs, as electrons are driven to vacate higher shells of the quantum confinement energy spectrum. This confinement-driven charging produces a disordered Coulomb landscape throughout the array and leads to VRH at low temperature. We use a simple computer simulation to identify different regimes of conduction in the space of temperature, doping level, and NC diameter. We also discuss the implications of our results for large NCs with external impurity charges and for NCs that are gated electrochemically.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures; extra schematic figures added; revised introductio

Passive Tracking System and Method

System and methods are disclosed for passively determining the location of a moveable transmitter utilizing a pair of phase shifts at a receiver for extracting a direction vector from a receiver to the transmitter. In a preferred embodiment, a phase difference between the transmitter and receiver is extracted utilizing a noncoherent demodulator in the receiver. The receiver includes antenna array with three antenna elements, which preferably are patch antenna elements placed apart by one-half wavelength. Three receiver channels are preferably utilized for simultaneously processing the received signal from each of the three antenna elements. Multipath transmission paths for each of the three receiver channels are indexed so that comparisons of the same multipath component are made for each of the three receiver channels. The phase difference for each received signal is determined by comparing only the magnitudes of received and stored modulation signals to determine a winning modulation symbol

Ozone production efficiencies of acetone and peroxides in the upper troposphere

HOx concentrations in the upper tropical troposphere can be enhanced by the presence of acetone and the convective injection of peroxides. These enhancements in HOx might be expected to increase ozone production by increasing the rate of the HO2+NO reaction. We show however that the convective enhancements of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and methyl hydroperoxide (CH3OOH) above steady state during the PEM West B campaign were largely restricted to air parcels of marine boundary layer origin in which the mean NO concentration was 8 pptv. The ozone production efficiencies of the two peroxides at such low NO concentrations are very small. Their impact on the ozone budget of the upper tropical troposphere during PEM West B was therefore probably modest. Unlike the peroxides, acetone in the upper tropical troposphere during PEM West B exhibited a positive correlation with NO. It also has a much larger ozone production efficiency than either H2O2 or CH3OOH. It therefore has a much greater potential for significantly increasing ozone production rates in the upper tropical troposphere

Comparative Morphologic Analysis and Geochronology for the Development and Decline of Two Pleistocene Coral Reefs, San Salvador and Great Inagua Islands, Bahamas

Reprinted from: John E. Mylroie (ed.), Proceedings of the 4th Symposium on the Geology of the Bahamas: San Salvador, Bahamian Field Station

Data assimilative modeling investigation of Gulf Stream Warm Core Ring interaction with continental shelf and slope circulation

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 119 (2014): 5968–5991, doi:10.1002/2014JC009898.A data assimilative ocean circulation model is used to hindcast the interaction between a large Gulf Stream Warm Core Ring (WCR) with the Mid-Atlantic Bight (MAB) shelf and slope circulation. Using the recently developed Incremental Strong constraint 4D Variational (I4D-Var) data assimilation algorithm, the model assimilates mapped satellite sea surface height (SSH), sea surface temperature (SST), in situ temperature, and salinity profiles measured by expendable bathythermograph, Argo floats, shipboard CTD casts, and glider transects. Model validations against independent hydrographic data show 60% and 57% error reductions in temperature and salinity, respectively. The WCR significantly changed MAB continental slope and shelf circulation. The mean cross-shelf transport induced by the WCR is estimated to be 0.28 Sv offshore, balancing the mean along-shelf transport by the shelfbreak jet. Large heat/salt fluxes with peak values of 8900 W m−2/4 × 10−4 kg m−2 s−1 are found when the WCR was impinging upon the shelfbreak. Vorticity analysis reveals the nonlinear advection term, as well as the residual of joint effect of baroclinicity and bottom relief (JEBAR) and advection of potential vorticity (APV) play important roles in controlling the variability of the eddy vorticity.Research support provided through ONR grants N00014-06-1-0739, N00014-10-1-0367, and NSF grant OCE-0927470 is much appreciated. B. Powell was supported by ONR grant N00014-09-10939. K. Chen was supported by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Postdoctoral Scholar Program.2015-03-1

On the mechanical properties of melt-blended nylon 6/ethylene-octene copolymer/graphene nanoplatelet nanocomposites.

Ethylene-octene copolymer (EOC) with a loading level of 20 wt%, maleated EOC (EOC-g-MA) with a loading level of 3 wt% and graphene nanoplatelets (GnPs) at four different loading levels, i.e., 3 wt%, 5 wt%, 10 wt% and 15 wt% were added to nylon 6 to prepare nanocomposites using a twin-screw extruder with a high shear rate screw running at 300 rpm. Increased stiffness was observed with the addition of GnPs while tensile strength of nanocomposites was only slightly influenced. Addition of GnPs into nylon 6 and nylon 6/EOC blend caused either a reduction in the Charpy impact strength or it remained unaffected. Similarly, the Izod impact strength of compatibilized nylon 6/EOC blend increased while that of nylon 6/EOC blend-based nanocomposites decreased. An increase was observed in the compressive Izod impact strength of compatibilized nylon 6/EOC blend. Addition of GnPs to nylon 6/EOC blend caused an increase in the fracture toughness due to their influence on the morphology and fracture mechanisms. This study shows that simultaneous addition of high surface area GnPs and an impact modifier to neat nylon 6 can help achieve enhancement and tailoring of stiffness and toughness