Commodified Desire: Negotiating Asian American Heteronormativity

This essay examines H.T. Tsiangs proletariat novel And China Has Hands and positions it within the diasporic network that it emerged from and suggest that, by satisfying the needs of capital by providing a constant source of labor, segregated Chinese spaces became, in Rodrick Fergusons words, the locations for possible critiques of state and capital..[because it did] not rely on normative prescriptions to assemble labor. Thus, if industrial imperialism helped create the terms by which heteronormative patriarchy became the norm, it also helped produce social formations that necessarily deviated from heteronormative familial relationships. Elaborating, I suggest that the novels basic logic relies on a strict adherence to a Marxist understanding of the reification of the commodity fetish in intimacy. I claim that, due to its rigidly Marxist reading, the novels logic problematically inscribes heteronormativity as a normative network of intimacy, even as it attempts to critique the heteropatriarchal nature of capitalist intimacy. Following Kevin Floyds recent attempt to rethink the categories of totality and reification, I also argue that, by shifting the focus away from the reification of the commodity fetish, And China Has Hands resolves itself by pointing to the impossibility of heteronormativity for Asian American men

RCUK Open Access Compliance Monitoring Report 2014

No abstract available

Engage - Using Data About Research Clusters to Enhance Collaboration

This project explored different classifications of research and ideas for implementing these in University systems to facilitate publicity of research

Experimental demonstration of a measurement-based realisation of a quantum channel

We introduce and experimentally demonstrate a method for realising a quantum channel using the measurement-based model. Using a photonic setup and modifying the bases of single-qubit measurements on a four-qubit entangled cluster state, representative channels are realised for the case of a single qubit in the form of amplitude and phase damping channels. The experimental results match the theoretical model well, demonstrating the successful performance of the channels. We also show how other types of quantum channels can be realised using our approach. This work highlights the potential of the measurement-based model for realising quantum channels which may serve as building blocks for simulations of realistic open quantum systems.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

An LED-based Flasher System for VERITAS

We describe a flasher system designed for use in monitoring the gains of the photomultiplier tubes used in the VERITAS gamma-ray telescopes. This system uses blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs) so it can be operated at much higher rates than a traditional laser-based system. Calibration information can be obtained with better statistical precision with reduced loss of observing time. The LEDs are also much less expensive than a laser. The design features of the new system are presented, along with measurements made with a prototype mounted on one of the VERITAS telescopes.Comment: Accepted for publication in Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research

A Tripartite Examination of Heterosexual Canadians' Attitudes Toward Subgroups of Gay Men and Lesbian Women

Recent trends in nation-wide opinion polls and academic research indicate that evaluations of gay men and lesbian women have become decidedly more favourable over the last 30 years. However, discrimination against gay men and lesbian women remains widespread. A possible explanation for this paradox is that there exist different subgroups of gay men and lesbian women with different attitudes directed toward them. Subgroups that are perceived comparatively more positively may be masking the negativity directed at other subgroups. Therefore, the primary goals of this dissertation were to identify subgroups of gay men and lesbian women and to assess attitudes towards them. This dissertation outlines four studies, laid out in three separate chapters. Chapter 2 delineates the process that was used to identify subgroups of gay men and lesbian women and reports on which subgroups emerged as most salient to Canadian undergraduate students and the Canadian population more widely. Chapter 3 describes the examination of explicit attitudes toward the subgroups identified in Chapter 2 using the tripartite model of attitudes that includes cognition, affect, and behaviour. Complementing the study of explicit attitudes, Chapter 4 describes the use of a computerised reaction-time measure to assess implicit attitudes toward the subgroups. Overall, the results of this dissertation support the existence of subgroups of gay men and lesbian women and document what attitudes are associated with them. The methodological and theoretical implications of the findings on our understanding of attitudes toward the overarching categories of gay men and lesbian women are explored and a discussion of how future research needs to change to accommodate the fragmentation of the superordinate groups are included

The Impact of COVID-19 on Tourism and Hospitality in Poland: Female Entrepreneurial Firms’ Ecosystem Strategies

Beyond severe illness and deaths, the COVID-19 pandemic brought widespread economic disruption, businesses closing, and unemployment surging to levels not experienced since the Great Depression. The effect of this pandemic on global tourism has been fast, extensive, widespread, and devastating. This paper identifies the significant characteristics of female entrepreneurial businesses. It examines the strategies taken between 2015 and 2022 to influence the firm\u27s growth and reduce the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings are based on the interviews conducted with ten female entrepreneurs who own and operate small family-based entrepreneurial firms in Poland\u27s tourism and hospitality industry. This paper aims to deliver recommendations for policy actions and entrepreneurship strategies to effectively grow and curtail or counterbalance the impact of exogenous shocks such as the economic shutdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic

A general approach to quantum dynamics using a variational master equation: Application to phonon-damped Rabi rotations in quantum dots

We develop a versatile master equation approach to describe the non-equilibrium dynamics of a two-level system in contact with a bosonic environment, which allows for the exploration of a wide range of parameter regimes within a single formalism. As an experimentally relevant example, we apply this technique to the study of excitonic Rabi rotations in a driven quantum dot, and compare its predictions to the numerical Feynman integral approach. We find excellent agreement between the two methods across a generally difficult range of parameters. In particular, the variational master equation technique captures effects usually considered to be non-perturbative, such as multi-phonon processes and bath-induced driving renormalisation, and can give reliable results even in regimes in which previous master equation approaches fail.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures. Published version, revised title, minor changes to the tex