Apocalypse Now: On Heinrich von Kleist, Caspar David Friedrich, and the Emergence of Abstract Art

While discussions of abstract art usually imply that the movement began in the twentieth century, its conceptualization pre‐dates its identification as a distinct tendency in the visual arts. One early text that articulates the premises of abstract art is Heinrich von Kleist's “Empfindungen vor Friedrichs Seelandschaft,” his narrative response from 1810 to Caspar David Friedrich's controversial painting Der Mönch am Meer. For all its inherent radicality and despite its departure from mimetic representation, Der Mönch am Meer does not constitute a leap on the part of Friedrich to abstract aesthetics. Rather, I argue that, in his re‐imagining of Der Mönch am Meer, Kleist crosses this threshold, constituting a vision of nonrepresentational art nearly a century prior to its purported existence. As I show by examining both painting and prose, what Friedrich anticipates with his visual image, Kleist describes in his written text

It's Not Easy Being Green: The Failure of Abstract Art in Gottfried Keller's Der grüne Heinrich

This article revisits the art and artists of Gottfried Keller’s Der grüne Heinrich, a novel concluding with a conservative stance against artistic innovation, in order to explore how pre–twentieth-century literary fiction advanced the development of unconventional modes of artistic expression such as abstract art. Through comparative analysis of two fictional artworks described in the novel, I argue that Keller’s nineteenth-century bildungsroman preconditions radical twentieth-century art forms by establishing the self-awareness of the artist as necessary for the creation of unorthodox artworks. This investigation of cross-medial exchange emphasizes the cultural work performed by literature in furthering and fostering innovative visual media

Study of the Ocean Transportation of Chemicals

The growth of the chemical industry over the past 30 years has contributed significantly to the increased volume of hazardous cargo transported by ocean vessel. The properties of some chemicals in commerce, particularly intermediate products, are such that their movement represents a risk to society in terms of environmental damage, bodily injury, and carcinogenic effects that may not surface for years. This study traces the development of the ocean chemical transportation system with emphasis on the technology, management and regulatory regime that has evolved to control these risks. Selected incidents involving hazardous chemical cargoes are reviewed, highlighting the industry and government responses. This study concludes that the present risk management system is capable of supporting hazardous chemical transportation at sea with minimal risk, with two notable weaknesses; the shipowners reliance on the cargo owner\u27s selection of packaging and stowage for intermodal transport, and the impact of human error on the system of technological, managerial and regulatory controls. The study endorses the International Maritime Organization\u27s efforts to create a liability regime similar to that in effect for oil pollution liability

Biexcitons in two-dimensional systems with spatially separated electrons and holes

The binding energy and wavefunctions of two-dimensional indirect biexcitons are studied analytically and numerically. It is proven that stable biexcitons exist only when the distance between electron and hole layers is smaller than a certain critical threshold. Numerical results for the biexciton binding energies are obtained using the stochastic variational method and compared with the analytical asymptotics. The threshold interlayer separation and its uncertainty are estimated. The results are compared with those obtained by other techniques, in particular, the diffusion Monte-Carlo method and the Born-Oppenheimer approximation.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figure

Collection of indirect excitons in a diamond-shaped electrostatic trap

We report on the principle and realization of a new trap for excitons -- the diamond electrostatic trap -- which uses a single electrode to create a confining potential for excitons. We also create elevated diamond traps which permit evaporative cooling of the exciton gas. We observe collection of excitons towards the trap center with increasing exciton density. This effect is due to screening of disorder in the trap by the excitons. As a result, the diamond trap behaves as a smooth parabolic potential which realizes a cold and dense exciton gas at the trap center.Comment: 4 Pages, 5 figure

Concentration-dependent mobility in organic field-effect transistors probed by infrared spectromicroscopy of the charge density profile

We show that infrared imaging of the charge density profile in organic field-effect transistors (FETs) can probe transport characteristics which are difficult to access by conventional contact-based measurements. Specifically, we carry out experiments and modeling of infrared spectromicroscopy of poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) FETs in which charge injection is affected by a relatively low resistance of the gate insulators. We conclude that the mobility of P3HT has a power-law density dependence, which is consistent with the activated transport in disorder-induced tails of the density of states.Comment: 3+ pages, 2 figure

Integrating Research Skills into the German Studies Curriculum

The faculty expected students in the capstone course to complete requirements for a content-rich course and also produce a research paper in German, but discovered that most students did not have the research skills to write such a paper. After participating in the 2017-2018 Center for Undergraduate Research Faculty Working Group on Integrating Research into the Curriculum, they decided to scaffold research skills strategically into five required courses in the German Studies major: GERM 301: High Intermediate German I GERM 302: High Intermediate German II GERM 315: German Literature and the Modern Era GERM 401: Advanced German I GERM 580: Senior Capstone Course: Contemporary German-Speaking EuropeC21 Course Transformation Grant, Office of Academic Affairs, University of Kansa

Coulomb matrix elements of bilayers of confined charge carriers with arbitrary spatial separation

We describe a practical procedure to calculate the Coulomb matrix elements of 2D spatially separated and confined charge carriers, which are needed for detailed theoretical descriptions of important condensed matter finite systems. We derive an analytical expression, for arbitrary separations, in terms of a single infinite series and apply a u-type Levin transform in order to accelerate the resulting infinite series. This procedure has proven to be efficient and accurate. Direct consequences concerning the functional dependence of the matrix elements on the separation distance, transition amplitudes and the diagonalization of a single electron-hole pair in vertically stacked parabolic quantum dots are presented.Comment: 8 page

Localization-Delocalization Transition of Indirect Excitons in Lateral Electrostatic Lattices

We study transport of indirect excitons in GaAs/AlGaAs coupled quantum wells in linear lattices created by laterally modulated gate voltage. The localization-delocalization transition (LDT) for transport across the lattice was observed with reducing lattice amplitude or increasing exciton density. The exciton interaction energy at the transition is close to the lattice amplitude. These results are consistent with the model, which attributes the LDT to the interaction-induced percolation of the exciton gas through the external potential. We also discuss applications of the lattice potentials for estimating the strength of disorder and exciton interaction.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure