Face of a woman, body of a child

My thesis is a work of creative non-fiction detailing many of my life experiences as a person affected by Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy. My opening chapter is written from a child\u27s perspective as I contemplate the onset of my illness at the age of four. The middle chapters of this work explore the turbulent adolescent years and my growing confusion and insecurity regarding the progression of my condition. The close of this work details my friendship with another woman affected by the same condition. Through this unique bond, I gain a greater understanding and acceptance of myself

Slave Morality and the Revaluation of Values

What exactly does Nietzsche mean when he describes himself as an 'immoralist'? Does he really reject all morality? Confounding the issue, Nietzsche himself seems to take a number of conflicting positions on the topic of morality. What is he really attacking - the moral values themselves or merely the effects of those values? Is he a moral nihilist, or is his criticism simply aimed at specific forms of morality? I maintain that neither of these possibilities is the case. Instead, I argue that Nietzsche's immoralism is best understood in a straightforward literal sense - namely, Nietzsche is not a new kind of moralist offering a new moral system but an unapologetic iconoclast who challenges, not merely certain forms of morality, but morality itself. However, I argue that this does not commit him to some sort of value nihilism. Nietzsche is not opposed to valuing, just moral ways of valuing. Instead, Nietzsche's values are related to health versus sickness - values that are ultimately rooted in Nietzsche's notion of the will to power. I maintain that this is what he means by a `revaluation of all values' - he wants to reorient the very way in which we (or at least some of us) value. Chapter 1 explores Nietzsche's critique of the various forms of morality while Chapter 2 establishes the anchor for his revaluation of values in the form of the will to power and his notion of health. In Chapter 3 I examine the sickness of the ascetic ideal while Chapter 4 contrasts Paul's revaluation with Nietzsche's. In the final chapter I contrast Nietzsche's positive ideal of health (rooted in the will to power) with the full array of sick types delineated in Chapter 2. Based on this analysis, I then articulate Nietzsche's positive views in connection to major features of his thought like the will to power and the eternal return

Comment on "Quantum Monte Carlo Evidence for Superconductivity in the Three-Band Hubbard Model in Two Dimensions"

In a recent Letter, Kuroki and Aoki [Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 440 (1996)] presented quantum Monte-Carlo (QMC) results for pairing correlations in the three-band Hubbard model, which describes the Cu-d_{x^2-y^2} and O-p_{x,y} orbitals present in the CuO_2 planes of high-T_c materials. In this comment we argue that (i) the used parameter set is not appropriate for the description of high-T_c materials since it does not satisfy the minimal requirement of a charge-transfer gap at half-filling, and (ii) the observed increase in the d_{x^2-y^2} channel is dominantly produced by the pair-field correlations without the vertex part. Hence, the claim of evidence of ODLRO is not justified.Comment: 1 page latex and 2 eps-figures, uses epsfig, submitted to PR

Pairing, Charge, and Spin Correlations in the Three-Band Hubbard Model

Using the Constrained Path Monte Carlo (CPMC) method, we simulated the two-dimensional, three-band Hubbard model to study pairing, charge, and spin correlations as a function of electron and hole doping and the Coulomb repulsion $V_{pd}$ between charges on neighboring Cu and O lattice sites. As a function of distance, both the $d_{x^2 - y^2}$-wave and extended s-wave pairing correlations decayed quickly. In the charge-transfer regime, increasing $V_{pd}$ decreased the long-range part of the correlation functions in both channels, while in the mixed-valent regime, it increased the long-range part of the s-wave behavior but decreased that of the d-wave behavior. Still the d-wave behavior dominated. At a given doping, increasing $V_{pd}$ increased the spin-spin correlations in the charge-transfer regime but decreased them in the mixed-valent regime. Also increasing $V_{pd}$ suppressed the charge-charge correlations between neighboring Cu and O sites. Electron and hole doping away from half-filling was accompanied by a rapid suppression of anti-ferromagnetic correlations.Comment: Revtex, 8 pages with 15 figure

Quantum Monte Carlo Study of Hole Binding and Pairing Correlations in the Three-Band Hubbard Model

We simulated the 3-band Hubbard model using the Constrained Path Monte Carlo (CPMC) method in search for a possible superconducting ground state. The CPMC is a ground state method which is free of the exponential scaling of computing time with system size. We calculated the binding energy of a pair of holes for systems up to $6 \times 4$ unit cells. We also studied the pairing correlation functions versus distance for both the d-wave and extended s-wave channels in systems up to $6 \times 6$. We found that holes bind for a wide range of parameters and that the binding increased as the system size is increased. However, the pairing correlation functions decay quickly with distance. For the extended s channel, we found that as the Coulomb interaction $U_d$ on the Cu sites is increased, the long-range part of the correlation functions is suppressed and fluctuates around zero. For the $d_{x^2 - y^2}$ channel, we found that the correlations decay rapidly with distance towards a small positive value. However, this value becomes smaller as the interaction $U_d$ or the system size is increased.Comment: 21 pages, 13 Postscript figures, Submitted to Phys. Rev.

Oxide mediated spectral shifting in aluminum resonant optical antennas

As a key feature among metals showing good plasmonic behavior, aluminum extends the spectrum of achievable plasmon resonances of optical antennas into the deep ultraviolet. Due to degradation, a native oxide layer gives rise to a metal-core/oxide-shell nanoparticle and influences the spectral resonance peak position. In this work, we examine the role of the underlying processes by applying numerical nanoantenna models that are experimentally not feasible. Finite-difference time-domain simulations are carried out for a large variety of elongated single-arm and two-arm gap nanoantennas. In a detailed analysis, which takes into account the varying surface-to-volume ratio, we show that the overall spectral shift toward longer wavelengths is mainly driven by the higher index surrounding material rather than by the decrease of the initial aluminum volume. In addition, we demonstrate experimentally that this shifting can be minimized by an all-inert fabrication and subsequent proof-of-concept encapsulation. © 2015 Optical Society of America

A new approach for perovskites in large dimensions

Using the Hubbard Hamiltonian for transition metal-3d and oxygen-2p states with perovskite geometry, we propose a new scaling procedure for a nontrivial extension of these systems to large spatial dimensions $D$. The scaling procedure is based on a selective treatment of different hopping processes for large $D$ and can not be generated by a unique scaling of the hopping element. The model is solved in the limit $D \rightarrow \infty$ by the iterated perturbation theory and using an extended non-crossing approximation. We discuss the evolution of quasi particles at the Fermi-level upon doping, leading to interesting insight into the dynamical character of the charge carriers near the metal insulator instability of transition metal oxide systems, three dimensional perovskites and other strongly correlated transition metal oxides.Comment: 5 pages (TeX) with 2 figures (Postscript

Magnetic and pair correlations of the Hubbard model with next-nearest-neighbor hopping

A combination of analytical approaches and quantum Monte Carlo simulations is used to study both magnetic and pairing correlations for a version of the Hubbard model that includes second-neighbor hopping $t^{\prime }=-0.35t$ as a model for high-temperature superconductors. Magnetic properties are analyzed using the Two-Particle Self-Consistent approach. The maximum in magnetic susceptibility as a function of doping appears both at finite $$ and at $t^{\prime }=0$ but for two totally different physical reasons. When $t^{\prime }=0$, it is induced by antiferromagnetic correlations while at $t^{\prime }=-0.35t$ it is a band structure effect amplified by interactions. Finally, pairing fluctuations are compared with $$-matrix results to disentangle the effects of van Hove singularity and of nesting on superconducting correlations. The addition of antiferromagnetic fluctuations increases slightly the $d$-wave superconducting correlations despite the presence of a van Hove singularity which tends to decrease them in the repulsive model. Some aspects of the phase diagram and some subtleties of finite-size scaling in Monte Carlo simulations, such as inverted finite-size dependence, are also discussed.Comment: Revtex, 8 pages + 15 uuencoded postcript figure