4,913 research outputs found
Dual characterization of critical fluctuations: Density functional theory & nonlinear dynamics close to a tangent bifurcation
We improve on the description of the relationship that exists between
critical clusters in thermal systems and intermittency near the onset of chaos
in low-dimensional systems. We make use of the statistical-mechanical language
of inhomogeneous systems and of the renormalization group (RG) method in
nonlinear dynamics to provide a more accurate, formal, approach to the subject.
The description of this remarkable correspondence encompasses, on the one hand,
the density functional formalism, where classical and quantum mechanical
analogues match the procedure for one-dimensional clusters, and, on the other,
the RG fixed-point map of functional compositions that captures the essential
dynamical behavior. We provide details of how the above-referred theoretical
approaches interrelate and discuss the implications of the correspondence
between the high-dimensional (degrees of freedom) phenomenon and
low-dimensional dynamics.Comment: 8 figure
Archiving the \u2780s: Feminism, Queer Theory, & Visual Culture
Archiving the \u2780s: Feminism, Queer Theory, & Visual Culture locates a shared genealogy of feminism and queer theory in the visual culture of 1980s American feminism. Gathering primary sources from grant-funded research in a dozen archives, I analyze an array of image-text media of women, ranging from well known creators like Gloria Anzaldúa, Alison Bechdel, and Nan Goldin, to little known ones like Roberta Gregory and Lee Marrs. In each chapter, I examine how each woman develops movement politics in her visual production, and I study the reception of their works in their communities of influence. Through studying hybrid visual rather than merely literary output, I explore the overlooked role of visual culture in feminist and LGBT social justice movements. In the first chapter, I review the transition period from the 1970s through the comics work of Roberta Gregory and Lee Marrs. Their early comics demonstrate the limitations of 1970s feminism, and I analyze how they develop their critiques in the 1980s in newly created comics series like Gay Comix (1980-1998). In the second chapter, I reconfigure the legacy of cartoonist Alison Bechdel as a grassroots activist through analyzing her participation as production coordinator of multiple grassroots periodicals across the 1980s. The third chapter resituates Chicana theorist Gloria Anzaldúa as a visual thinker and examines how she fuses race and sexuality in drawings that she would use to illustrate her own talks. I consider the importance of visual discourse to women of color feminism by evaluating the changing visual material in each version of her famed anthology, This Bridge Called My Back (1981, 1983, 2002, 2015). In the fourth chapter, I scrutinize the evolving politics of photographer Nan Goldin in her well-known The Ballad of Sexual Dependency slideshow and in her little-discussed curation of the controversial AIDS exhibit, Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing (1989). Through these artists’ visual production, I argue that the visual offers a more capacious form of feminism that embraces diversity, especially around issues of sexuality
Massive envelopes and filaments in the NGC 3603 star forming region
The formation of massive stars and their arrival on the zero-age
main-sequence occurs hidden behind dense clouds of gas and dust. In the giant
Hii region NGC 3603, the radiation of a young cluster of OB stars has dispersed
dust and gas in its vicinity. At a projected distance of 2:5 pc from the
cluster, a bright mid-infrared (mid-IR) source (IRS 9A) had been identified as
a massive young stellar object (MYSO), located on the side of a molecular clump
(MM2) of gas facing the cluster. We investigated the physical conditions in
MM2, based on APEX sub-mm observations using the SABOCA and SHFI instruments,
and archival ATCA 3 mm continuum and CS spectral line data. We resolved MM2
into several compact cores, one of them closely associated with IRS 9A. These
are likely infrared dark clouds as they do not show the typical hot-core
emission lines and are mostly opaque against the mid-IR background. The compact
cores have masses of up to several hundred times the solar mass and gas
temperatures of about 50 K, without evidence of internal ionizing sources. We
speculate that IRS 9A is younger than the cluster stars, but is in an
evolutionary state after that of the compact cores
A Philosophical Perspective on Group Polarization
Polarization has become an increasingly concern for the United States, especially in recent years. The political parties have refrained from working together, but instead have been dehumanizing one another that has been triggered by media platforms. Philosophy is a field of study that instills value into basic ideas in our world. That being said, the aim of political philosophy is to find the value of political entities in our societies. Evaluating these ideals allow us to answer a question: Which philosophical political ideals can we use to create solutions to the increased polarization in the United States? In order to answer this question, this work analyzes philosophical texts such as Plato’s Statesman, Aristotle’s Politics, and Hannah Arendt’s Between Past and Future to find ideals that are best suited to find ways to decrease polarization. While looking at the current state of United States politics, this work also analyzes the role modern media platforms play in group polarization. Combining these elements provides a framework based on philosophical political ideals on how we can prevent group polarization from increasing any more in this country. This project contains four main solutions, which are tied to philosophical ideals, in order to diminish the divide between the modern partisan groups. First, from Arendt’s ideals on the importance of freedom of speech in our political entities, we as individuals need to respect not only our right, but as well as that same right of others. Next, Plato’s ideals of a political leader’s responsibility to unify different people in the community tells us we, as a society, need to hold our political leaders accountable for accomplishing this goal. The third solution is to take action to encourage modern media platforms to take measures to change their role in polarization and is derived from Arendt’s emphasis on our individual responsibility to take action in our political spheres. The final solution is to find common ground with one another and begin making real change in our political entity. Aristotle’s ideals act as a reminder that the ultimate purpose of politics is to provide a good life for everyone in the political sphere. This work is designed to bring the realization that the political entity in the United States is not a competition as we have been treating it. Rather, it is a unified front to create the best life for those who are a part of it
Breeding for improved responsiveness to arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in onion
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) play an important role in the uptake of nutrients and water from soil. Onions, Allium cepa L., are plants with a shallow root system. As a result, onion plants need a lot of fertiziler for their growth. Furthermore, onion plants are sensitive to drought. The aim of the current research project is to study the beneficial effect of mycorrhizal fungi on the growth and development of Allium species and to determine whether it is possible to improve onions for mycorrhizal responsiveness by means of breeding. Variation among Allium species and segregation observed in a interspecific tri-hybrid population indicate that selection and thus breeding for high responsiveness to AMF is possible
Lifetime Measurement of the 8s Level in Francium
We measure the lifetime of the 8s level on a magneto-optically trapped sample
of ^{210}Fr atoms with time-correlated single-photon counting. The 7P_{1/2}
state serves as the resonant intermediate level for two-photon excitation of
the 8s level completed with a 1300 nm laser. Analysis of the fluorescence decay
through the the 7P_{3/2} level gives 53.30 +- 0.44 ns for the 8s level
lifetime.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
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