27 research outputs found
Observation of superluminal geometrical resonances in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x intrinsic Josephson junctions
We study Fiske steps in small Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x mesa structures, containing
only few stacked intrinsic Josephson junctions. Careful alignment of magnetic
field prevents penetration of Abrikosov vortices and facilitates observation of
a large variety of high quality geometrical resonances, including superluminal
with velocities larger than the slowest velocity of electromagnetic waves. A
small number of junctions limits the number of resonant modes and allows
accurate identification of modes and velocities. It is shown that superluminal
geometrical resonances can be excited by subluminal fluxon motion and that
flux-flow itself becomes superluminal at high magnetic fields. We argue that
observation of high-quality superluminal geometrical resonances is crucial for
realization of the coherent flux-flow oscillator in the THz frequency range
Disparity of superconducting and pseudogap scales in low-Tc Bi-2201 cuprates
We experimentally study transport and intrinsic tunneling characteristics of
a single-layer cuprate Bi(2+x)Sr(2-y)CuO(6+delta) with a low superconducting
critical temperature Tc < 4 K. It is observed that the superconducting energy,
critical field and fluctuation temperature range are scaling down with Tc,
while the corresponding pseudogap characteristics have the same order of
magnitude as for high-Tc cuprates with 20 to 30 times higher Tc. The observed
disparity of the superconducting and pseudogap scales clearly reveals their
different origins.Comment: 5 page
Exploring the transdisciplinary trajectory of suggestibility
Traditionally considered a deficiency in will power and rationality, suggestibility has proven a troublesome concept for psychology. It was forgotten, rediscovered, denounced, undermined experimentation and recently became the ambiguous issue at the centre of concern about child witness' credibility in sexual abuse cases. This paper traces the history of suggestibility to show how it raises the 'paradox of the psychosocial'. Drawing on the work of Deleuze and Stengers, and on interviews with legal practitioners, this paper demonstrates how suggestibility carries this paradox into theory, research and legal practice. It thereby opens up a transdisciplinary perspective, allowing for questions of power and knowledge to be asked as performative questions. In the spirit of a process-centred ontology for psychology, I argue that suggestibility constitutes a 'rhythm of problematization', a folding, giving a subversive insight into dynamics of subjectification and application, and offering new perspectives towards issues of children's credibility and protection
Liminality in Practice: A Case study in Life Sciences Research
Contemporary health challenges (e.g. diabetes, climate change, antimicrobial resistance) are underpinned by complex interrelationships between behavioral, cultural, social, environmental and biological processes. Current experimental systems are only partially relevant to the problems they investigate, but aspirations to embed interdisciplinary working and community engagement into life scientists’ work inresponse to this partiality have proven difficult in practice. This paper explores one UK university-based life sciences initiative as it seeks to develop modes of working which respond to this complexity. Drawing on ‘liminal hotspots’ as a sensitizing concept, we explore how participating academics articulate complex problems, knowledge-making, interdisciplinary working and community engagement. Our analysis shows they become recurrently ‘trapped’ (institutionally and epistemologically) between fixed/universalized cosmologies of biology/disease, and more contemporary cosmologies in which biology and disease are conceptualized as situated and evolving. Adopting approaches to community organizing based on ‘process pragmatism’ we propose ways in which life scientists might radically reorganise their practice and move beyond current limiting enactments of interdisciplinary and community engaged working. In doing so we claim that the relevance and ‘humanness’ of life scienceresearch will be increased
Awake, asleep, adult, child : an a-humanist account of persons
Sleeping persons do not seem to be agents, to express identity or to give voice. On one view this means that social research on sleep would do best to focus on the social context of sleep rather than sleep `itself'. If the only analytic vocabulary at our disposal consists of abstractions that assume the existence of self-conscious, self-present individuals, this conclusion is probably correct. This article, however, builds on the work of some contemporary childhood researchers to offer an account of the `person' as an emergent property of distributed interactions between heterogeneous elements. The account is built through a discussion of `transitional objects' and `affects'. It is argued that this version of the 'person' could help social research to make sense of both sides of the awake/asleep threshold. The potential contribution of this approach to the emerging bio-politics of childhood and states of un/consciousness is discussed