Ultrashort pulse characterization by spectral shearing interferometry with spatially chirped ancillae

We report a new version of spectral phase interferometry for direct electric field reconstruction (SPIDER), which enables consistency checking through the simultaneous acquisition of multiple shears and offers a simple and precise calibration method. By mixing the test pulse with two spatially chirped ancilla fields we generate a single-shot interferogram which contains multiple shears, the spectral amplitude of the test pulse, and the reference phase, which is accurate for broadband pulses. All calibration parameters - shear, upconversion-frequency and reference phase position - can be accurately obtained from a single calibration trace.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figure

From Welfare to Work: Prospects for Transition

Welfare reform is at the top of the agenda for many members of the new Congress. But, as John Dorrer observes addressing this increasingly important topic, no silver bullet for solving our welfare problems has been found. He urges welfare reformers to attempt to understand the social and economic contexts in which our welfare system operates and to move cautiously in making changes

„Neider überall zwingen uns zu gerechter Verteidigung“

This first monograph on WWI dramatic literature closes one of the last research desiderata of the German literature on the First World War. The author opens up a hitherto unknown corpus of texts and identifies the most important discourses represented in these WWI plays. Furthermore, he embeds the discourses in contemporary public debates and identifies them in more famous dramatic works of the Weimar Republic. This allows the analysis of the Heimkehrerdramen of Toller, Brecht, and Horváth to focus on the representation of contemporary narratives that have so far been overlooked and embeds these plays in the context in which they were created. Previously, this was only the case for Karl Kraus’s Die letzten Tage der Menschheit, which is also interpreted by the author in a newly established intertextual relationship with early WWI dramas. The approach this book takes not only provides new insights into WWI dramatic literature from 1914 to the end of the Weimar Republic, but also new points of departure for research in a number of literary and cultural studies fields. Die Arbeit wurde von der Universität Jena und dem Weimarer Republik e.V. mit dem Friedrich-Ebert-Preis 2021 für die international beste Dissertation/Habilitation zur Weimarer Republik ausgezeichnet

Do We Have the Workforce Skills for Maine’s Innovation Economy?

A convergence of economic and demographic forces is shaping a set of formidable challenges for Maine. This article describes how a workforce with superior skills is the key to economic growth and innovation. Over the last five decades, skill requirements have changed dramatically for most workers with the shift from goods-producing to service industries. While much has been done in reforming K-12, post secondary, and adult education systems to accommodate the changing Maine economy, it is not enough More innovation and adaptation will be required from policymakers, institutional leaders, employers and Maine people themselves

MultiNeuron - Neural Networks Simulator for Medical, Physiological, and Psychological Applications

This work describes neural software applied in medicine and physiology to: - investigate and diagnose immune deficiencies; diagnose and study allergic and pseudoallergic reactions; forecast emergence or aggravation of stagnant cardiac insufficiency in patients with cardiac rhythm disorders; forecast development of cardiac arrhythmia after myocardial infarction; reveal relationships between the accumulated radiation dose and a set of immunological, hormonal, and bio-chemical parameters of human blood and find a method to be able to judge by these parameters the dose value; propose a technique for early diagnosis of chor-oid melanomas; Neural networks help also to predict human relations within a group

FLEA: Fresnel-limited extraction algorithm applied to spectral phase interferometry for direct field reconstruction (SPIDER)

We present a novel extraction algorithm for spectral phase interferometry for direct field reconstruction (SPIDER) for the so-called X-SPIDER configuration. Our approach largely extends the measurable time windows of pulses without requiring any modification to the experimental X-SPIDER set-up.Comment: 24 pages 26 references 8 figure

Women, body and eating : a social representational study in British and Tobagonian cultural contexts

In this thesis I explore women's engagement with body, weight and eating from a socio-cultural perspective. I discuss the limitations of current research on body dissatisfaction and propose that women's negative appraisal of their body needs to be understood as an active engagement with their social context. Research that focuses on the interaction of ethnic/cultural differences and body dissatisfaction seeks to clarify the interrelationship between femininity, gender and culture and suggests that women's dissatisfaction with their body is linked to levels of global Westernisation. My criticism of this research is that it conceptualises culture and social knowledge in a simplistic way. I propose social representations theory and the principles of dialogicality as an alternative research paradigm and argue that such an approach can overcome the dichotomy of individual and social, inner and outer. In order to explore the interaction of the subjective with the social in relation to the negative and positive appraisal of the body an interview study was conducted in two distinct cultural contexts. In depth interviews were conducted with 14 women in the UK and 12 women in Tobago, WI. The thema recognition/disrespect was used as an interpretative frame. The results show that the meanings that were assigned to the body interlinked with socially enacted representations of self, other and femininity. While the thema recognition/disrespect could be seen to be problematised through contradictory conditions of worth in the UK, it was the notion of 'disrespect' in interrelation with representations of others that was foregrounded in women's reflections in Tobago. In both research locations women negotiated constraining or contradictory demands of femininity and 're-presented' themselves through the construction of alternative identities