Passive harmonic mode-locking by mode selection in Fabry-Perot diode lasers with patterned effective index

We demonstrate passive harmonic mode-locking of a quantum well laser diode designed to support a discrete comb of Fabry-Perot modes. Spectral filtering of the mode spectrum was achieved using a non-periodic patterning of the cavity effective index. By selecting six modes spaced at twice the fundamental mode spacing, near-transform limited pulsed output with 2 ps pulse duration was obtained at a repetition rate of 100 GHz.Comment: 3 page

A Catholic Future for Catholic Higher Education? The State of the Question

Catholic higher education is prospering, but most colleges and universities exhibit uncertainty about their specifically Catholic mission and identity. For 30 years, these schools have lived with the consequences of separate incorporation, as religious orders passed control to mixed boards of trustees and the institutions sought to improve the quality of their programs. Now their faculty and staffs are lay, highly professional, and religiously very diverse. If the institutions are to be meaningfully Catholic, trustees, faculty, and professional staff must develop programs which foster Catholic intellectual life and influence the work of teaching, research, and service. In doing so, they have reason for confidence, because the tradition is rich and the contemporary Church is filled with resources, but also for modesty, for there are no blueprints for Catholic scholarship and teaching. The keys are commitment, the decision to be constructively Catholic, conversation, willingness to engage the entire community in a dialogue about the religious dimensions of academic life, and competence

Unsolicited written narratives as a methodological genre in terminal illness: challenges and limitations

Stories about illness have proven invaluable in helping health professionals understand illness experiences. Such narratives have traditionally been solicited by researchers through interviews and the collection of personal writings, including diaries. These approaches are, however, researcher driven; the impetus for the creation of the story comes from the researcher and not the narrator. In recent years there has been exponential growth in illness narratives created by individuals, of their own volition, and made available for others to read in print or as Internet accounts. We sought to determine whether it was possible to identify such material for use as research data to explore the subject of living with the terminal illness amyotrophic lateral sclerosis/motor neuron disease—the contention being that these accounts are narrator driven and therefore focus on issues of greatest importance to the affected person. We encountered and sought to overcome a number of methodological and ethical challenges, which is our focus here

‘Delacroix, Chenavard, and the End of History’

The art historical visions of Eugène Delacroix and Paul Chenavard had much in common. Both men saw the achievements of the classical period and the Renaissance as highpoints in the history of art and both decried their contemporaries’ faith in progress, believing that modernity’s materialism, commercialism, and technophilia adversely affected artistic production. Yet while Chenavard argued that present-day artists could only offer inferior variations on the achievements of past masters, Delacroix felt that great geniuses could still rival them. Relying especially on the exchanges between the two artists recorded in Delacroix’s Journal, this paper compares and contrasts the eschatological aspects of the two artists’ understanding of history in order to illuminate their attitudes toward tradition and modernity

In vivo measurements of muscle specific tension in adults and children

This article is available open access through the publisher’s website at the link below. Copyright @ 2009 The Authors.To better understand the effects of pubertal maturation on the contractile properties of skeletal muscle in vivo, the present study investigated whether there are any differences in the specific tension of the quadriceps muscle in 20 adults and 20 prepubertal children of both sexes. Specific tension was calculated as the ratio between the quadriceps tendon force and the sum of the physiological cross-sectional area (PCSA) multiplied by the cosine of the angle of pennation of each head within the quadriceps muscle. The maximal quadriceps tendon force was calculated from the knee extension maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) by accounting for EMG-based estimates of antagonist co-activation, incomplete quadriceps activation using the interpolation twitch technique and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based measurements of the patellar tendon moment arm. The PCSA was calculated as the muscle volume, measured from MRI scans, divided by optimal fascicle length, measured from ultrasound images during MVC at the estimated angle of peak quadriceps muscle force. It was found that the quadriceps tendon force and PCSA of men (11.4 kN, 214 cm2) were significantly greater than those of the women (8.7 kN, 152 cm2; P 0.05) between groups: men, 55 ± 11 N cm−2; women, 57.3 ± 13 N cm−2; boys, 54 ± 14 N cm−2; and girls, 59.8 ± 15 N cm−2. These findings indicate that the increased muscle strength with maturation is not due to an increase in the specific tension of muscle; instead, it can be attributed to increases in muscle size, moment arm length and voluntary activation level

Acid Polishing of Lead Crystal Glass

The industrial partner manufactures high quality lead crystal glassware. The cutting of decorative features in the glass damages the surface and the cuts are optically opaque; to restore transparency, the glass is polished in a solution of hydrofluoric (HF) and sulphuric acid (H2 SO4 .) The polishing process comprises three stages: 1. immersion in a polishing tank containing acid; 2. rinsing in a tank containing water; and 3. settlement of the solid reaction products in a settlement tank. The manufacturer hopes to optimise its polishing process to • minimise the health/environmental impact of the process; • maximise throughput; • maintain the sharpness of the cut edges while still polishing to an acceptable level of transparency. The study group was asked to focus on modelling three aspects of the process: • the chemical reactions involved in the etching at the glass-acid solution interface; • the removal of reaction products in the settlement tank; • flow within the polishing tank

Replicator degrees of freedom allow publication of misleading failures to replicate

In recent years, the field of psychology has begun to conduct replication tests on a large scale. Here, we show that “replicator degrees of freedom” make it far too easy to obtain and publish false-negative replication results, even while appearing to adhere to strict methodological standards. Specifically, using data from an ongoing debate, we show that commonly exercised flexibility at the experimental design and data analysis stages of replication testing can make it appear that a finding was not replicated when, in fact, it was. The debate that we focus on is representative, on key dimensions, of a large number of other replication tests in psychology that have been published in recent years, suggesting that the lessons of this analysis may be far reaching. The problems with current practice in replication science that we uncover here are particularly worrisome because they are not adequately addressed by the field’s standard remedies, including preregistration. Implications for how the field could develop more effective methodological standards for replication are discussed. © 2019 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved

Visible light-induced destabilization of endocytosed liposomes

AbstractThe potential biomedical utility of the photoinduced destabilization of liposomes depends in part on the use of green to near infrared light with its inherent therapeutic advantages. The polymerization of bilayers can be sensitized to green light by associating selected amphiphilic cyanine dyes, i.e. the cationic 1,1′-dioctadecyl-3,3,3′,3′-tetramethylindocarbocyanine (DiI), or the corresponding anionic disulfonated DiI (DiI-DS), with the lipid bilayer. The DiI sensitization of the polymerization of 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine/1,2-bis[10-(2′,4′-hexadienoyloxy)-decanoyl]-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine liposomes caused liposome destabilization with release of encapsulated aqueous markers. In separate experiments, similar photosensitive liposomes were endocytosed by cultured HeLa cells. Exposure of the cells and liposomes to 550 nm light caused a net movement of the liposome-encapsulated 8-hydroxypyrene-1,3,6-trisulfonic acid (HPTS) from low pH compartment(s) to higher pH compartment(s). This suggests that photolysis of DiI-labelled liposomes results in delivery of the contents of the endocytosed liposomes to the cytoplasm. The release of HPTS into the cytoplasm appears to require the photoactivated fusion of the labelled liposomes with the endosomal membrane. These studies aid in the design of visible light sensitive liposomes for the delivery of liposome-encapsulated reagents to the cytoplasm

Mythological cognition in contemporary science fiction and fantasy

There are two main hypotheses for this thesis. The primary hypothesis is that Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff, Philip José Farmer and Philip K. Dick, in The Meri (Fantasy), Night of Light (SF), and VALIS (SF), respectively, require their protagonists to think mythologically to overcome the limits of their material universes. The secondary hypothesis is that, just as the aforementioned protagonists think mythologically to overcome the limits of their material universes, so is the reader forced to engage in mythological cognition to think beyond the limits of materialism. I give evidence for these hypotheses by showing that the protagonists think mythologically using mythological archetypes to challenge their perceptions regarding the ontological status of matter in their respective worlds. This leads to their deepening discovery that their material worlds are emanations of higher realms of spirit. Due to the fact mythological archetypes become representatives of spirit in these texts, mythological cognition is shown to be constructivist in character, because the authors’ blending of the concepts of ‘spirit’ with ‘matter’, causes mythological archetypes to challenge their protagonists’ perceptions. I therefore explain how this blending takes place using the theory of conceptual blending. Conceptual blending illustrates that it is the authors’ use of metaphor that blends matter and spirit. Using Jean Piaget’s constructivist philosophy, I highlight how this blending allows the protagonists to either assimilate new knowledge into their existing view of the world, or to accommodate new knowledge by updating their view to a new paradigm. Likewise, I argue that the reader is engaged in mythological cognition by being required to go through similar cognitive processes to the protagonists, to properly understand the texts. The reader is encouraged to think beyond the boundaries of materialism, so that the idealisms informing the creation of the primary texts can be properly understood in their real-world philosophical roles