27,335 research outputs found
Rotten Bananas, Hip Hop Heads, and the American Individual: Teaching Eddie Huang’s Memoir Fresh Off the Boat and Its Tropes of Literacy
This essay focuses on Fresh Off the Boat as an eminently teachable coming-of-age story, provides critical contexts and directions for teaching this ideologically suggestive text, and sets forth the interpretive argument that the structures and themes of the memoir are fundamentally shaped by the literacy narrative at its core. As such, the text enters into conversation with other literacy narratives that have become so foundational in the teaching of multiethnic literature in the U.S. Moreover, Huang’s tropes of literacy draw from enduring, mythified Americanist discourses that are suggestive of a masculine individualism that, while not unique, is recognizable, instructive, and even problematic as an illustration of a powerful discourse of self-formation. In an effort to speak not only to specialists in U.S. multiethnic literature but also to nonspecialists/generalists, this discussion offers a tripartite approach to teaching this memoir: opening the unit with a sustained, critical, and creative discussion of genre(s), including traditional and popular forms; then inviting students to hone their critical thinking skills through careful rhetorical and ideological analyses of the text’s representations of race, identity, assimilation, and resistance; and ultimately setting forth a focused, conceptual argument about Fresh Off the Boat as a “literacy narrative” while placing the text within a broader U.S. literary history and discourse about the American individual
Recent La Plata basin drought conditions observed by satellite gravimetry
The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) provides quantitative
measures of terrestrial water storage (TWS) change. GRACE data show a
significant decrease in TWS in the lower (southern) La Plata river basin of
South America over the period 2002-2009, consistent with recognized drought
conditions in the region. GRACE data reveal a detailed picture of temporal and
spatial evolution of this severe drought event, which suggests that the drought
began in lower La Plata in around austral spring 2008 and then spread to the
entire La Plata basin and peaked in austral fall 2009. During the peak, GRACE
data show an average TWS deficit of ~12 cm (equivalent water layer thickness)
below the 7 year mean, in a broad region in lower La Plata. GRACE measurements
are consistent with accumulated precipitation data from satellite remote
sensing and with vegetation index changes derived from Terra satellite
observations. The Global Land Data Assimilation System model captures the
drought event but underestimates its intensity. Limited available
groundwater-level data in southern La Plata show significant groundwater
depletion, which is likely associated with the drought in this region.
GRAC-observed TWS change and precipitation anomalies in the studied region
appear to closely correlate with the ENSO climate index, with dry and wet
seasons corresponding to La Ni\~na and El Ni\~no events, respectively
Kondo Effect in Fermi Systems with a Gap: A Renormalization Group Study
We present the results of a Wilson Renormalization Group study of the
single-impurity Kondo and Anderson models in a system with a gap in the
conduction electron spectrum. The behavior of the impurity susceptibility and
the zero-frequency response function, are discussed in the
cases with and without particle-hole symmetry. In addition, for the asymmetric
Anderson model the correlation functions, , are computed.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figure
Truth Table Invariant Cylindrical Algebraic Decomposition by Regular Chains
A new algorithm to compute cylindrical algebraic decompositions (CADs) is
presented, building on two recent advances. Firstly, the output is truth table
invariant (a TTICAD) meaning given formulae have constant truth value on each
cell of the decomposition. Secondly, the computation uses regular chains theory
to first build a cylindrical decomposition of complex space (CCD) incrementally
by polynomial. Significant modification of the regular chains technology was
used to achieve the more sophisticated invariance criteria. Experimental
results on an implementation in the RegularChains Library for Maple verify that
combining these advances gives an algorithm superior to its individual
components and competitive with the state of the art
Deformation of a renormalization-group equation applied to infinite-order phase transitions
By adding a linear term to a renormalization-group equation in a system
exhibiting infinite-order phase transitions, asymptotic behavior of running
coupling constants is derived in an algebraic manner. A benefit of this method
is presented explicitly using several examples.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, revtex4, typo corrected, references adde
On the accuracy of retrieved wind information from Doppler lidar observations
A single pulsed Doppler lidar was successfully deployed to measure air flow and turbulence over the Malvern hills, Worcester, UK. The DERA Malvern lidar used was a CO2 µm pulsed Doppler lidar. The lidar pulse repetition rate was 120 Hz and had a pulse duration of 0.6 µs The system was set up to have 41 range gates with range resolution of 112 m. This gave a theoretical maximum range of approximately 4.6 km. The lidar site was 2 km east of the Malvern hill ridge which runs in a north-south direction and is approximately 6 km long. The maximum height of the ridge is 430 m. Two elevation scans (Range-Height Indicators) were carried out parallel and perpendicular to the mean surface flow. Since the surface wind was primarily westerly the scans were carried out perpendicular and parallel to the ridge of the Malvern hills.
The data were analysed and horizontal winds, vertical winds and turbulent fluxes were calculated for profiles throughout the boundary layer. As an aid to evaluating the errors associated with the derivation of velocity and turbulence profiles, data from a simple idealized profile was also analysed using the same method. The error analysis shows that wind velocity profiles can be derived to an accuracy of 0.24 m s-1 in the horizontal and 0.3 m s-1 in the vertical up to a height of 2500 m. The potential for lidars to make turbulence measurements, over a wide area, through the whole depth of the planetary boundary layer and over durations from seconds to hours is discussed
Fast tuning of superconducting microwave cavities
Photons are fundamental excitations of the electromagnetic field and can be
captured in cavities. For a given cavity with a certain size, the fundamental
mode has a fixed frequency {\it f} which gives the photons a specific "color".
The cavity also has a typical lifetime , which results in a finite
linewidth {\it f}. If the size of the cavity is changed fast compared
to , and so that the frequency change {\it f} {\it
f}, then it is possible to change the "color" of the captured photons. Here we
demonstrate superconducting microwave cavities, with tunable effective lengths.
The tuning is obtained by varying a Josephson inductance at one end of the
cavity. We show data on four different samples and demonstrate tuning by
several hundred linewidths in a time . Working in the few
photon limit, we show that photons stored in the cavity at one frequency will
leak out from the cavity with the new frequency after the detuning. The
characteristics of the measured devices make them suitable for different
applications such as dynamic coupling of qubits and parametric amplification.Comment: 2nd International Workshop on Solid-State Quantum Computing, June
2008, Taipei, Taiwa
The Renormalization Group and Singular Perturbations: Multiple-Scales, Boundary Layers and Reductive Perturbation Theory
Perturbative renormalization group theory is developed as a unified tool for
global asymptotic analysis. With numerous examples, we illustrate its
application to ordinary differential equation problems involving multiple
scales, boundary layers with technically difficult asymptotic matching, and WKB
analysis. In contrast to conventional methods, the renormalization group
approach requires neither {\it ad hoc\/} assumptions about the structure of
perturbation series nor the use of asymptotic matching. Our renormalization
group approach provides approximate solutions which are practically superior to
those obtained conventionally, although the latter can be reproduced, if
desired, by appropriate expansion of the renormalization group approximant. We
show that the renormalization group equation may be interpreted as an amplitude
equation, and from this point of view develop reductive perturbation theory for
partial differential equations describing spatially-extended systems near
bifurcation points, deriving both amplitude equations and the center manifold.Comment: 44 pages, 2 Postscript figures, macro \uiucmac.tex available at macro
archives or at ftp://gijoe.mrl.uiuc.edu/pu
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