Laser altimeter

Ruby laser operating at 6943 angstroms at the heart of an electronic ranging system provides a highly accurate range measurement to an extremely small area

Mary Shelley, Victor Frankenstein, and the Powers of Creation

When Mary Shelley referred to her first novel, Frankenstein, as my hideous progeny, she could not have comprehended the full significance of her words. For while her phrase eloquently compares her creation of the text with Victor Frankenstein\u27s creation of the monster, we, reading the novel today, are witness to the hideous progeny to which her own text has given rise. Version after version has sprung forth, focusing on different aspects of her story, leading to such productions as the famous 1931 Boris Karloff film, The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1973) and the recent Edward Scissorhands. In the past fifteen or twenty years, however, Frankenstein has been reborn not simply in new versions but to a new life altogether, in the illumination of feminist criticism. While the Frankenstein story has yielded a rich tradition in the world of science-fiction and fantasies of horror, the text takes on a new dimension when we consider the significance of the fact that it was written by a woman. For, fundamentally, Frankenstein is the story of a man who creates a world in which women are unnecessary. The very function of the body that gives women a place in this world, in Mary Shelley\u27s world, is appropriated by a man. Shelley emphasizes the significance of this project as a step towards rendering women unnecessary III two distinct ways. First and foremost is her characterization of Victor Frankenstein--his unhealthy attitudes toward women, his resistance to understanding women\u27s biology, his refusal to create a female monster. Yet she also frames his story in that of Robert Walton, whose only tie with a woman is with his sister, and who, with a group of men, strives to overpower nature and establish a new society at the North Pole. What Shelley creates, then, is a text that speaks to issues of men\u27s control of women, the use of science to control nature, and the role of human biology in all of this. Throughout history, the issue of reproduction has played an integral role in the ways in which men and women relate to one another. Procreation has always been the one absolutely essential function of our species; at the same time, it has brought with it varying degrees of enjoyment, and has become an issue of power balances. While reproduction depends upon the union of a man and a woman, it also accentuates the differences that separate male and female. The physical structure of our biology portrays different aspects of power; in the sexual act, man is the active penetrator of woman, the passive penetrated, yet it is the woman\u27s body that builds, nurtures, and produces a human being. It is important to consider the constants of the process of reproduction--the sexual act itself, for example--in the context of our steadily changing knowledge and perception of the human body and how it works. I am examining here the idea of men\u27s lack of understanding of the process of reproduction--both in a historical sense of a time when men simply did not understand the mechanics of conception, and in a social, more modern sense of refusing to understand it

A Shopper\u27s Tale: A Visual Narrative

This project approaches non-traditional storytelling through design. It serves to explore the research question: how can non-traditional presentations of narrative play with one\u27s expectations and engage people to see their world differently? To do this, A Shopper\u27s Tale: A Visual Narrative explores how narrative can be used in visual, everyday mediums to challenge the reader to experience a new way of presenting narrative

The Politics of Remembering State Violence in Argentina's Jewish Community

Latin American Studie

The New Vertical Starting Block and its Effect on Sprint Starting Time

The purpose of this investigation was to compare the starting and performance times of sprinters using the vertical starting blocks with their starting and performance times using the conventional blocks. Thirteen volunteer members of the combined freshman and varsity track teams at South Dakota State University served as both the experimental and control groups. The subjects participated in a six week training program with both the vertical and the conventional blocks being utilized, during which time they met for twelve training sessions. The subjects were tested two and one-half weeks after the training program had begun and immediately following the completion of the training program. Starting time and performance time were statistically analyzed. The data collected during the testing were recorded and analyzed to determine what effect the vertical starting blocks had on starting time and performance time. The results of the findings in the initial test indicated that the vertical starting blocks employed in this study produced a statistically significant in1provement in performance time, but no significant improvement was found in starting time. The results of the findings in the final test indicated that the vertical starting blocks employed in this study produced a statistically significant improvement in both starting time and performance time

Geologic setting of the Central Alaskan hot springs belt: Implications for geothermal resource capacity and sustainable energy production

Thesis (Ph.D.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2008The Central Alaskan Hot Springs Belt (CAHSB) is a vast stretch of low-temperature hydrothermal systems that has the potential to be a geothermal energy resource for remote communities in Alaska. Little exploration has occurred in the CAHSB and the resource is poorly understood. A geothermal power plant was installed in 2006 at Chena Hot Springs (CHS), one of the 30-plus hot springs in the CAHSB. This, in addition to the multiple direct use projects at CHS, could serve as a model for geothermal development elsewhere in the CAHSB. This dissertation evaluates the geologic setting of the CAHSB and explores the implications for resource capacity and sustainable energy production. The local geology and geochemical characteristics of CHS are characterized, with a focus on identifying ultimate heat source responsible for the hot springs. A radiogenic heat source model is proposed and tested for the entire CAHSB, wherein the anomalously radioactive plutons that are associated with nearly every hot spring are providing the source of heat driving the geothermal activity. This model appears to be feasible mechanism for the observed heat transfer. This implies that CAHSB “reservoir” fluids are probably low-temperature. It also suggests that individual hydrothermal systems are small-scale and localized features, unlike the types of hydrothermal systems that are conventionally exploited for energy (i.e., those that derive their heat from magmatic or deep crustal sources, which have higher reservoir temperatures and larger spatial extent). In this context, the individual capacity of several CAHSB resources close to communities is assessed, and a preliminary evaluation of the sustainability of the power production iii iv scheme at CHS is given. As another approach to the question of sustainability, this dissertation explores the ways in which external benefits of geothermal energy can influence the economics of a project. In sum, producing geothermal energy from CAHSB resources is somewhat risky at the present time, though it may be less risky than continued use of diesel fuel. The risks of geothermal development could be greatly reduced by rapid and immediate exploration efforts to collect much-needed data about CAHSB geothermal resources

The Altering Eye

The Altering Eye covers a "golden age" of international cinema from the end of WWII through to the New German Cinema of the 1970s. Combining historical, political, and textual analysis, Kolker develops a pattern of cinematic invention and experimentation from neorealism through the modernist interventions of Jean-Luc Godard and Rainer Maria Fassbinder, focusing along the way on such major figures as Luis Buñuel, Joseph Losey, the Brazilian director Glauber Rocha, and the work of major Cuban filmmakers. Kolker’s book has become a much quoted classic in the field of film studies providing essential reading for anybody interested in understanding the history of European and international cinema. This new and revised edition includes a substantive new Preface by the author and an updated Bibliography