Architectural Grounding in Miller's Elektra: Temporality and Spatiality in the Graphic Novel

When we say we are "caught up" in a story or that we "get lost" in a novel, it doesn't mean we have lost our orientation in traversing the terrain constructed by the writer. We really mean the opposite, that we are so fully and deeply oriented within that world that we have lost, for the moment, our connection with our own. This process is simple in that it takes place quickly, and without our realizing anything has transpired. Yet it is also complex, for if we try to examine the manner by which we accumulate a medley of coded information to follow the story and to position ourselves in a world of someone else's creation we may easily become mired. In literature, as in architecture or urban situations when narratives or places flow smoothly from one location to the next, they create a seamless exploration of a particular world. Narrative breaks, temporal shifts, or gaps in circulation on the other hand, make us look up and take account of where we are going and where we might have arrived. We may find ourselves in an unusual space or situation, a place not yet encountered, that somehow seems strangely familiar and we "recognize" it. Somehow, no matter how strange, we "know" how to find our way. Elektra: Assassin, a graphic novel scripted by Frank Miller and illustrated by Bill Sienkiewicz provides an excellent example for exploration of these principles that apply not only to textual media in general and to sequential art in particular, but also architecture and the city

Not Thinking but Questioning

In this paper I examine two films of Terrence Malick, Badlands (1973), and Days of Heaven (1978) as vehicles to look at how depth of thought can influence creative image making.1 Badlands follows two young people aged 25 and 15, on a journey through the American mid-West in the 1950s, as they try to escape their destiny killing people along the way. Days of Heaven is set earlier, just before the First World War and tells the story of a love triangle between migrant workers and a farmer

Modernist Noir

Films use architecture as visual shorthand to tell viewers everything they need to know about the characters in a short amount of time. Only a few seconds are required to impart who the players are and whether they are on their way up, or down. Modern architecture plays a speci! c role in this dialogue. The occupant of the stark compositions and straight white lines of modernism with their de! ned light and shadow is not just a rascal, but a cold-blooded evildoer associated with calculated reasoning. In contrast cheerful and inviting faux-Tudor or fieldstone-clad houses denote homely domesticity to the viewing public

Plato and Hegel stay home

As we watch a film, we let filmmakers take us by the hand and tell us a story until they lead us into a world visually constructed to captivate us for a specific amount of time. The worst thing a filmmaker can do is not to terrify us, or fool us with special effects, but to rob us of our illusion that what we are seeing is ‘true’ even if just for now. Through the mimetic power of film, we, the viewer, picture the film set as if it is real architecture, and assemble the walls and floors we see into an architectural whole. This paper focuses on what we see ‘behind’ the screen rather than the cinematic experience itself. The premise is that by examining the nature of filmic ‘reality’ we will be helped to understand architectural form and order

Virtual effects of light gauginos and higgsinos: a precision electroweak analysis of split supersymmetry

We compute corrections to precision electroweak observables in supersymmetry in the limit that scalar superpartners are very massive and decoupled. This leaves charginos and neutralinos and a Standard Model-like Higgs boson as the only states with unknown mass substantially affecting the analysis. We give complete formulas for the chargino and neutralino contributions, derive simple analytic results for the pure gaugino and higgsino cases, and study the general case. We find that in all circumstances, the precision electroweak fit improves when the charginos and neutralinos are near the current direct limits. Larger higgsino and gaugino masses worsen the fit as the theory predictions asymptotically approach those of the Standard Model. Since the Standard Model is considered by most to be an adequate fit to the precision electroweak data, an important corollary to our analysis is that all regions of parameter space allowed by direct collider constraints are also allowed by precision electroweak constraints in split supersymmetry.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figures, v2: typos fixed and note adde

The Hall conductance, topological quantum phase transition and the Diophantine equation on honeycomb lattice

We consider a tight-binding model with the nearest neighbour hopping integrals on the honeycomb lattice in a magnetic field. Assuming one of the three hopping integrals, which we denote t_a, can take a different value from the two others, we study quantum phase structures controlled by the anisotropy of the honeycomb lattice.For weak and strong t_a regions, respectively, the Hall conductances are calculated algebraically by using the Diophantine equation. Except for a few specific gaps, we completely determine the Hall conductances in these two regions including those for subband gaps. In a weak magnetic field, it is found that the weak t_a region shows the unconventional quantization of the Hall conductance, \sigma_{xy}=-(e^2/h)(2n+1), (n=0,\pm 1,\pm 2,...), near the half-filling, while the strong t_a region shows only the conventional one, \sigma_{xy}=-(e^2/h)n,(n=0,1,2,...). From topological nature of the Hall conductance, the existence of gap closing points and quantum phase transitions in the intermediate t_a region are concluded. We also study numerically the quantum phase structure in detail, and find that even when t_a=1, namely in graphene case, the system is in the weak t_a phase except when the Fermi energy is located near the van Hove singularity or the lower and upper edges of the spectrum.Comment: 35 pages, 15 figures; added reference

π-Conjugated Macrocycles Bearing Angle-Strained Alkynes

Angle‐strained alkyne‐containing π‐conjugated macrocycles are attractive compounds both in functional materials chemistry and biochemistry. Their interesting reactivity as well as photophysical and supramolecular properties have been revealed in the past three decades. This review highlights the recent advances in angle‐strained alkyne‐containing π‐conjugated macrocycles, especially their synthetic methods, the bond angles of alkynes (∠sp at C≡C−C), and their functions. The theoretical and experimental research on cyclo[n]carbons and para‐cyclophynes consisting of ethynylenes and para‐phenylenes are mainly summarized. Related macrocycles bearing other linkers, such as ortho‐phenylenes, meta‐phenylenes, heteroaromatics, biphenyls, extended aromatics, are also overviewed. Bond angles of strained alkynes in π‐conjugated macrocycles, which are generable, detectable, and isolable, are summarized at the end of this review

Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Neonatal Screening of Critical Congenital Heart Defects in China.

Background: Pulse oximetry screening is a highly accurate tool for the early detection of critical congenital heart disease (CCHD) in newborn infants. As the technique is simple, noninvasive, and inexpensive, it has potentially significant benefits for developing countries. The aim of this study is to provide information for future clinical and health policy decisions by assessing the costeffectiveness of CCHD screening in China. Methods and Findings: We developed a cohort model to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of screening all Chinese newborns annually using 3 possible screening options compared to no intervention: pulse oximetry alone, clinical assessment alone, and pulse oximetry as an adjunct to clinical assessment. We calculated the incremental cost per averted disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) in 2015 international dollars to measure cost-effectiveness. One-way sensitivity analysis and multivariate probabilistic sensitivity analysis were performed to test the robustness of the model. Of the three screening options, we found that clinical assessment is the most cost-effective strategy compared to no intervention with an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of Int$5,728/DALY, while pulse oximetry plus clinical assessment with the highest ICER yielded the best health outcomes. Sensitivity analysis showed that when the treatment rate increased up to 57.5%, pulse oximetry plus clinical assessment showed the best expected values among the three screening options. Conclusion: In China, for neonatal screening for CCHD at the national level, clinical assessment was a very cost-effective preliminary choice and pulse oximetry plus clinical assessment was worth considering for the long term. Improvement in accessibility to treatment is crucial to expand the potential health benefits of screening. Abbreviations: ACER = average cost-effectiveness ratio, CCHD = critical congenital heart disease, CHD = congenital heart disease, DALYs = disability adjusted life years, GDP = gross domestic product, ICER = incremental cost-effectiveness analysis, WHO = World Health Organization, WTP = willingness-to-pay

Neutrino mixing and large CP violation in B physics

We show that in see-saw models of neutrino mass a la SUSY SO(10), the observed large mixing in atmospheric neutrinos naturally leads to large b-s transitions. If the associated new CP phase turns out to be large, this SUSY contributions can drastically affect the CP violation in some of the B decay channels yielding the beta and gamma angles of the unitarity triangle. They can even produce sizeable CP asymmetries in some decay modes which are not CP violating in the standard model context. Hence the observed large neutrino mixing makes observations of low energy SUSY effect in some CP violating decay channels potentially promising in spite of the agreement between the Standard Model and data in K and B physics so far.Comment: References adde