An Introduction To Bach Studies

This volume is a guide to the resources and materials of Bach scholarship, both for the nonspecialist wondering where to begin in the enormous literature on J. S. Bach, and for the Bach specialist looking for a convenient and up-to-date survey of the field. It describes the tools of Bach research and how to use them, and suggests how to get started in Bach research by describing the principal areas of research and citing the essential literature on each piece and topic. The authors emphasize the issues that have engaged Bach scholars for generations, focusing on particularly important writings on recent literature on overviews, collections of essays and handbooks and on writings in English. Subjects covered include bibliographic tools of Bach research and sources of literature Bach\u27s family Bach biographies places Bach lived and worked Bach\u27s teaching the liturgy Bach source studies and the transmission of his music repertory and editions genres and individual vocal and instrumental works performance practice the reception and analysis of Bach\u27s music and many others. The book also offers explanations of important and potentially confusing topics in Bach research, such as the organization of the annual cantata cycles, pitch standards, the history of the Berlin libraries, the structure of the critical commentary volumes in the Neue Bach-Ausgabe, and so on. This book opens up the rich world of Bach scholarship to students, teachers, performers, and listener

Compact Optical Temporal Processors

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Optical signal processing can be done with time-lens devices. A temporal processor based on chirp-z transformers is suggested. This configuration is more compact than a conventional 4-f temporal processor. On the basis of implementation aspects of such a temporal processor, we did a performance analysis. This analysis leads to the conclusion that an ultrafast optical temporal processor can be implemented

Spinoza

"Spinoza", second edition. Encyclopedia entry for the Springer Encyclopedia of EM Phil and the Sciences, ed. D. Jalobeanu and C. T. Wolfe

Leibniz, Acosmism, and Incompossibility

Leibniz claims that God acts in the best possible way, and that this includes creating exactly one world. But worlds are aggregates, and aggregates have a low degree of reality or metaphysical perfection, perhaps none at all. This is Leibniz’s tendency toward acosmism, or the view that there this no such thing as creation-as-a-whole. Many interpreters reconcile Leibniz’s acosmist tendency with the high value of worlds by proposing that God sums the value of each substance created, so that the best world is just the world with the most substances. I call this way of determining the value of a world the Additive Theory of Value (ATV), and argue that it leads to the current and insoluble form of the problem of incompossibility. To avoid the problem, I read “possible worlds” in “God chooses the best of all possible worlds” as referring to God’s ideas of worlds. These ideas, though built up from essences, are themselves unities and so well suited to be the value bearers that Leibniz’s theodicy requires. They have their own value, thanks to their unity, and that unity is not preserved when more essences are added

Plasmonically Enhanced Reflectance of Heat Radiation from Low-Bandgap Semiconductor Microinclusions

Increased reflectance from the inclusion of highly scattering particles at low volume fractions in an insulating dielectric offers a promising way to reduce radiative thermal losses at high temperatures. Here, we investigate plasmonic resonance driven enhanced scattering from microinclusions of low-bandgap semiconductors (InP, Si, Ge, PbS, InAs and Te) in an insulating composite to tailor its infrared reflectance for minimizing thermal losses from radiative transfer. To this end, we compute the spectral properties of the microcomposites using Monte Carlo modeling and compare them with results from Fresnel equations. The role of particle size-dependent Mie scattering and absorption efficiencies, and, scattering anisotropy are studied to identify the optimal microinclusion size and material parameters for maximizing the reflectance of the thermal radiation. For composites with Si and Ge microinclusions we obtain reflectance efficiencies of 57 - 65% for the incident blackbody radiation from sources at temperatures in the range 400 - 1600 {\deg}C. Furthermore, we observe a broadbanding of the reflectance spectra from the plasmonic resonances due to charge carriers generated from defect states within the semiconductor bandgap. Our results thus open up the possibility of developing efficient high-temperature thermal insulators through use of the low-bandgap semiconductor microinclusions in insulating dielectrics.Comment: Main article (8 Figures and 2 Tables) + Supporting Information (8 Figures

Non-Equilibrium Statistical Physics of Currents in Queuing Networks

We consider a stable open queuing network as a steady non-equilibrium system of interacting particles. The network is completely specified by its underlying graphical structure, type of interaction at each node, and the Markovian transition rates between nodes. For such systems, we ask the question ``What is the most likely way for large currents to accumulate over time in a network ?'', where time is large compared to the system correlation time scale. We identify two interesting regimes. In the first regime, in which the accumulation of currents over time exceeds the expected value by a small to moderate amount (moderate large deviation), we find that the large-deviation distribution of currents is universal (independent of the interaction details), and there is no long-time and averaged over time accumulation of particles (condensation) at any nodes. In the second regime, in which the accumulation of currents over time exceeds the expected value by a large amount (severe large deviation), we find that the large-deviation current distribution is sensitive to interaction details, and there is a long-time accumulation of particles (condensation) at some nodes. The transition between the two regimes can be described as a dynamical second order phase transition. We illustrate these ideas using the simple, yet non-trivial, example of a single node with feedback.Comment: 26 pages, 5 figure