Repetition and difference: Lefebvre, Le Corbusier and modernity's (im)moral landscape: a commentary

This article engages with the relationship between social theory, architectural theory and material culture. The article is a reply to an article in a previous volume of the journal in question (Smith, M. (2001) ‘Repetition and difference: Lefebvre, Le Corbusier and modernity’s (im)moral landscape’, Ethics, Place and Environment, 4(1), 31-34) and, consequently, is also a direct engagement with another academic's scholarship. It represents a critique of their work as well as a recasting of their ideas, arguing that the matter in question went beyond interpretative issues to a direct critique of another author's scholarship on both Le Corbusier and Lefebvre. A reply to my article from the author of the original article was carried in a later issue of the journal (Smith, M. (2002) ‘Ethical Difference(s): a Response to Maycroft on Le Corbusier and Lefebvre’, Ethics, Place and Environment, 5(3), 260-269)

Screening methods for age-related hearing loss in older patients with cancer: A review of the literature

© 2018 by the authors. As people grow older, they may experience loss in hearing sensitivity. Age-related hearing loss may negatively affect the patient's quality of life as it may lead to social isolation. In older patients with cancer, hearing loss can seriously interfere with the patient's ability to deal properly with all aspects of their disease, and may have a cumulative effect on their already decreased quality of life. Therefore, the proper screening of those conditions is essential in order to optimise the patient's comfort during and after treatment. This review article aims at providing a concise image of the nature of age-related hearing loss, and provides an overview of the screening methods that could be used in older patients with cancer

Incommensurate Mott Insulator in One-Dimensional Electron Systems close to Quarter Filling

A possibility of a metal-insulator transition in molecular conductors has been studied for systems composed of donor molecules and fully ionized anions with an incommensurate ratio close to 2:1 based on a one-dimensional extended Hubbard model, where the donor carriers are slightly deviated from quarter filling and under an incommensurate periodic potential from the anions. By use of the renormalization group method, interplay between commensurability energy on the donor lattice and that from the anion potential has been studied and it has been found that an "incommensurate Mott insulator" can be generated. This theoretical finding will explain the metal-insulator transition observed in (MDT-TS)(AuI$_2$)$_{0.441}$.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, submitted to J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. at December 24 200

Optimal Alignment Sensing of a Readout Mode Cleaner Cavity

Critically coupled resonant optical cavities are often used as mode cleaners in optical systems to improve the signal to noise ratio (SNR) of a signal that is encoded as an amplitude modulation of a laser beam. Achieving the best SNR requires maintaining the alignment of the mode cleaner relative to the laser beam on which the signal is encoded. An automatic alignment system which is primarily sensitive to the carrier field component of the beam will not, in general, provide optimal SNR. We present an approach that modifies traditional dither alignment sensing by applying a large amplitude modulation on the signal field, thereby producing error signals that are sensitive to the signal sideband field alignment. When used in conjunction with alignment actuators, this approach can improve the detected SNR; we demonstrate a factor of 3 improvement in the SNR of a kilometer-scale detector of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory. This approach can be generalized to other types of alignment sensors

Performing Place: A Rhythmanalysis of the City of London

Through its focus on the City of London as a particular work sector and setting, this paper emphasizes the symbolic and material significance of place to understanding the lived experiences of power relations within organizational life. The socio-cultural and material aspects of the City are explored through an analysis of the rhythms of place, as well through interview data. Using a methodological approach based on Lefebvre’s Rhythmanalysis in order to develop an embodied, immersive sense of how the City is experienced as a workplace, the paper makes a methodological, empirical and theoretical contribution to an understanding of the way in which rhythms shape how place is performed. Using rhythmanalysis as a method, the paper shows the relationship between rhythms and the performances of place, foregrounding a subjective, embodied and experiential way of researching the places and spaces of organizing

La gestion du manque d’eau structurel et des sécheresses en France

Cet article s’intéresse aux politiques et dispositifs de gestion du manque d’eau et des sécheresses en France. La première partie décrit les politiques et dispositifs existants, en distinguant la gestion quantitative des volumes d'eau et la gestion par les prix ainsi que les politiques structurelles et les politiques conjoncturelles. La seconde partie discute des politiques et dispositifs envisageables en France. Cela inclut des politiques incitant aux adaptations au niveau des exploitations, une réforme de la gestion de crise et des dispositifs de tarification et d’échange de droits qui pourraient être différenciés selon les utilisateurs, l’état de la ressource et la situation météorologique. Ces nouveaux dispositifs sont par ailleurs compatibles avec la réforme en cours et la mise en place des organismes uniques de gestion collective (OUGC) à l’échelle locale. / This article deals with policies and management measures addressing water scarcity and droughts in France. The first part describes existing practices, differentiating between quota and pricing instruments and between structural and temporary measures. The second part discusses policies and measures that could be applied in France. It includes policies providing incitation to support farm-level adaptations, a reform of current crisis management and pricing and market measures that could be differentiated depending on the end-user, the state of the resource and the weather conditions. Moreover, these measures fit in the current policy reform and the introduction of local institutions for collective water management, called OUGC

Entanglement between more than two hundred macroscopic atomic ensembles in a solid

We create a multi-partite entangled state by storing a single photon in a crystal that contains many large atomic ensembles with distinct resonance frequencies. The photon is re-emitted at a well-defined time due to an interference effect analogous to multi-slit diffraction. We derive a lower bound for the number of entangled ensembles based on the contrast of the interference and the single-photon character of the input, and we experimentally demonstrate entanglement between over two hundred ensembles, each containing a billion atoms. In addition, we illustrate the fact that each individual ensemble contains further entanglement. Our results are the first demonstration of entanglement between many macroscopic systems in a solid and open the door to creating even more complex entangled states.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures; see also parallel submission by Frowis et a

Computationally efficient methods for modelling laser wakefield acceleration in the blowout regime

Electron self-injection and acceleration until dephasing in the blowout regime is studied for a set of initial conditions typical of recent experiments with 100 terawatt-class lasers. Two different approaches to computationally efficient, fully explicit, three-dimensional particle-in-cell modelling are examined. First, the Cartesian code VORPAL using a perfect-dispersion electromagnetic solver precisely describes the laser pulse and bubble dynamics, taking advantage of coarser resolution in the propagation direction, with a proportionally larger time step. Using third-order splines for macroparticles helps suppress the sampling noise while keeping the usage of computational resources modest. The second way to reduce the simulation load is using reduced-geometry codes. In our case, the quasi-cylindrical code CALDER-CIRC uses decomposition of fields and currents into a set of poloidal modes, while the macroparticles move in the Cartesian 3D space. Cylindrical symmetry of the interaction allows using just two modes, reducing the computational load to roughly that of a planar Cartesian simulation while preserving the 3D nature of the interaction. This significant economy of resources allows using fine resolution in the direction of propagation and a small time step, making numerical dispersion vanishingly small, together with a large number of particles per cell, enabling good particle statistics. Quantitative agreement of the two simulations indicates that they are free of numerical artefacts. Both approaches thus retrieve physically correct evolution of the plasma bubble, recovering the intrinsic connection of electron self-injection to the nonlinear optical evolution of the driver