The Familial Grotesque in the Poetry of Shirley Geok-lin Lim

Framing the representation of the family in Shirley Lim’s poetry against the concept of the grotesque, this essay aims to demonstrate how the aesthetic category is arguably enlisted as a symbol referring to the trope – or more accurately, with particular members of the family– in order to mount a criticism against it, or less directly, the Confucian, male-biased symbolic order that underscores it. That the maternal-figure is most often transfigured as a grotesque embodiment in Lim’s poems is telling in its implication of the poet’s own ambivalent feelings towards her own mother whom she recognizes as a woman who illustrates empowering individualism but also reprehensibility. As such, while some of her poems express affirmation of the grotesque’s capacity for transgressing ideological borders and confusing distinctions, others are less celebratory of the concept, which they evoke explicitly to clarify the family’s monstrous dimensions

Black metals : optical absorbers

This research was funded by the Melbourne University administrated DSI-RHD 2018, ARC Discovery DP190103284, Linkage LP190100505 grants, and EPSRC EP/M000869/1.We demonstrate a concept and fabrication of lithography-free layered metal-SiO2 thin-film structures which have reduced reflectivity (black appearance), to as low as 0.9%, with 4.9% broadband reflectance (8.9% for soda lime) in the 500–1400 nm range. The multi-layered (four layers) thin-film metamaterial is designed so that optical impedance matching produces minimal reflectance and transmittance within the visible and infra-red (IR) spectral region for a range of incident angles. The structure has enhanced absorbance and is easily tuned for reduced minimal transmission and reflection. This approach should allow for novel anti-reflection surfaces by impedance matching to be realized.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Phase controlled SERS enhancement

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has attracted increasing interest for chemical and biochemical sensing. Several studies have shown that SERS intensities are significantly increased when an optical interference substrate composed of a dielectric spacer and a reflector is used as a supporting substrate. However, the origin of this additional enhancement has not been systematically studied. In this paper, high sensitivity SERS substrates composed of self-assembled core-satellite nanostructures and silica-coated silicon interference layers have been developed. Their SERS enhancement is shown to be a function of the thickness of silica spacer on a more reflective silicon substrate. Finite difference time domain modeling is presented to show that the SERS enhancement is due to a spacer contribution via a sign change of the reflection coefficients at the interfaces. The magnitude of the local-field enhancement is defined by the interference of light reflected from the silica-air and silica-silicon interfaces, which constructively added at the hot spots providing a possibility to maximize intensity in the nanogaps between the self-assembled nanoparticles by changing the thickness of silica layer. The core-satellite assemblies on a 135\u2009nm silica-coated silicon substrate exhibit a SERS activity of approximately 13 times higher than the glass substrate

Determination of Stokes vector from a single image acquisition

Four Stokes parameters (1852) define the polarisation state of light. Measured changes of the Stokes vector of light traversing an inhomogeneous sample are linked to the local anisotropies of absorption and refraction and are harnessed over an increasing range of applications in photonics, material, and space/earth observation. Several independent polarisation sensitive measurements are usually required for determination of the all four Stokes parameters, which makes such characterisation procedure time-consuming or requires complex setups. Here we introduce a single-snapshot approach to Stokes polarimetry in transmission by use of a 4-polarisation camera with the on-chip integrated polarisers. A quarter-waveplate was added in front of the sample and was illuminated by a linearly polarised light. This approach is demonstrated by measuring birefringence $\Delta n\sim 0.012$ of spider silk of only $\sim 6~\mu$m-diameter using microscopy, however, due to its generic nature, it is transferable to other spectral ranges and imaging applications, e.g., imaging from a fast moving satellite or drone or monitoring fast changing events such as phase transitions.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure

Interesterified palm olein (IEPalm) and interesterified stearic acid-rich fat blend (IEStear) have no adverse effects on insulin resistance: a randomized control trial

Chemically-interesterified (CIE) fats are trans-fat free and are increasingly being used as an alternative to hydrogenated oils for food manufacturing industries to optimize their products’ characteristics and nutrient compositions. The metabolic effects of CIE fats on insulin activity, lipids, and adiposity in humans are not well established. We investigated the effects of CIE fats rich in palmitic (C16:0, IEPalm) and stearic (C18:0, IEStear) acids on insulin resistance, serum lipids, apolipoprotein concentrations, and adiposity, using C16:0-rich natural palm olein (NatPO) as the control. We designed a parallel, double-blind clinical trial. Three test fats were used to prepare daily snacks for consumption with a standard background diet over a period of 8 weeks by three groups of a total of 85 healthy, overweight adult volunteers. We measured the outcome variables at weeks 0, 6, and at the endpoint of 8. After 8 weeks, there was no significant difference in surrogate biomarkers of insulin resistance in any of the IE fat diets (IEPalm and IEStear) compared to the NatPO diet. The change in serum triacylglycerol concentrations was significantly lower with the IEStear diet, and the changes in serum leptin and body fat percentages were significantly lower in the NatPO-diet compared to the IEPalm diet. We conclude that diets containing C16:0 and C18:0-rich CIE fats do not affect markers of insulin resistance compared to a natural C16:0-rich fat (NatPO) diet. Higher amounts of saturated fatty acids (SFAs) and longer chain SFAs situated at the sn-1,3 position of the triacylglycerol (TAG) backbones resulted in less weight gain and lower changes in body fat percentage and leptin concentration to those observed in NatPO and IEStear

Compact Incoherent Multidimensional Imaging Systems Using Static Diffractive Coded Apertures

Incoherent holographic imaging technologies, in general, involve multiple optical components for beam splitting—combining and shaping—and in most cases, require an active optical device such as a spatial light modulator (SLM) for generating multiple phase-shifted holograms in time. The above requirements made the realization of holography-based products expensive, heavy, large, and slow. To successfully transfer the holography capabilities discussed in research articles to products, it is necessary to find methods to simplify holography architectures. In this book chapter, two important incoherent holography techniques, namely interference-based Fresnel incoherent correlation holography (FINCH) and interferenceless coded aperture correlation holography (I-COACH), have been successfully simplified in space and time using advanced manufacturing methods and nonlinear reconstruction, respectively. Both techniques have been realized in compact optical architectures using a single static diffractive optical element manufactured using lithography technologies. Randomly multiplexed diffractive lenses were manufactured using electron beam lithography for FINCH. A quasi-random lens and a mask containing a quasi-random array of pinholes were manufactured using electron beam lithography and photolithography, respectively, for I-COACH. In both cases, the compactification has been achieved without sacrificing the performances. The design, fabrication, and experiments of FINCH and I-COACH with static diffractive optical elements are presented in details