What About Susan? Gender in Narnia

Critics of C.S. Lewis argue that his misogyny is present in his portrayal of female characters. While Lewis himself was self-contradictory in his attitudes towards women, his depictions of female characters in The Chronicles of Narnia are both realistic and progressive. Both the male and female characters throughout the series demonstrate individual strengths and weaknesses that are not dependent on their gender. The criticism against Lewis focuses on his treatment of Susan, especially regarding her being the only child not to return to Narnia at the end of the series. Unlike what the critics argue, however, Susan is not excluded simply for her sexuality

The Reflected (Un)Real: Space in Ingeborg Bachmann’s “Probleme Probleme”

In her 1977 short story “Probleme Probleme,” Ingeborg Bachmann plays with space and representations of reality in a way that reflects the disillusionment of Austria’s post-war generation. Beatrix’s two desires in the short story – to look at herself in the mirror and to sleep – both suggest a resistance to living in the real world and a dependence on the illusions of her dreams, mirrors, and the beauty salon. Although the older patrons of the salon and Beatrix try to hide from the responsibility for the past and present, the mirrors and the salon prove to be temporary illusions that are unsustainable. Sleep and mirrors become ways to avoid reality rather than coming to terms with it, which, for Bachmann, is ultimately unproductive and naïve

The Static Quark-Antiquark Potential: A ``Classical'' Experiment On The Connection Machine CM-2

We describe the Wuppertal university pilot project in applied parallel computing. We report on a comprehensive high statistics determination of the static quark-antiquark potential and related quantities from quenched quantum chromodynamics. New data for the string tension and the plaquette action for the region 5.5 < beta < 6.8 is presented.Comment: (Talk K. Schilling), 11 pages, postscript (\approx 250K

Weak Decays of Heavy-Light Mesons on the Lattice: Semi-Leptonic Formfactors

We report results (on an intermediate statistics sample) of a study of weak semi-leptonic formfactors of $B$ and $D$ decays, addressing the uncertainties from mass extrapolations to chiral and to heavy quarks. Moreover, we present a nonperturbative test to the LMK current renormalization scheme for vector current {\it transition} matrix elements and find remarkable agreement.Comment: 13 pages, uuencoded, updated table

Studies of superconductivity and structure for CaC6 to pressures above 15 GPa

The dependence of the superconducting transition temperature Tc of CaC6 has been determined as a function of hydrostatic pressure in both helium-loaded gas and diamond-anvil cells to 0.6 and 32 GPa, respectively. Following an initial increase at the rate +0.39(1) K/GPa, Tc drops abruptly from 15 K to 4 K at 10 GPa. Synchrotron x-ray measurements to 15 GPa point to a structural transition near 10 GPa from a rhombohedral to a higher symmetry phase

Microscopic theory for the glass transition in a system without static correlations

We study the orientational dynamics of infinitely thin hard rods of length L, with the centers-of-mass fixed on a simple cubic lattice with lattice constant a.We approximate the influence of the surrounding rods onto dynamics of a pair of rods by introducing an effective rotational diffusion constant D(l),l=L/a. We get D(l) ~ [1-v(l)], where v(l) is given through an integral of a time-dependent torque-torque correlator of an isolated pair of rods. A glass transition occurs at l_c, if v(l_c)=1. We present a variational and a numerically exact evaluation of v(l).Close to l_c the diffusion constant decreases as D(l) ~ (l_c-l)^\gamma, with \gamma=1. Our approach predicts a glass transition in the absence of any static correlations, in contrast to present form of mode coupling theory.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

Tables of joint probabilities useful in evaluating mixed acceptance sampling plans

Tables of joint probabilities useful in evaluating mixed acceptance sampling plan

Compact QED under scrutiny: it's first order

We report new results from our finite size scaling analysis of 4d compact pure U(1) gauge theory with Wilson action. Investigating several cumulants of the plaquette energy within the Borgs-Kotecky finite size scaling scheme we find strong evidence for a first-order phase transition and present a high precision value for the critical coupling in the thermodynamic limit.Comment: Lattice2002(Spin

Superconductivity at 17 K in Yttrium Metal under Nearly Hydrostatic Pressures to 89 GPa

In an experiment in a diamond anvil cell utilizing helium pressure medium, yttrium metal displays a superconducting transition temperature which increases monotonically from Tc ? 3.5 K at 30 GPa to 17 K at 89.3 GPa, one of the highest transition temperatures for any elemental superconductor. The pressure dependence of Tc differs substantially from that observed in previous studies under quasihydrostatic pressure to 30 GPa. Remarkably, the dependence of Tc on relative volume V/Vo is linear over the entire pressure range above 33 GPa, implying that higher values of Tc are likely at higher pressures. For the trivalent metals Sc, Y, La, Lu there appears to be some correlation between Tc and the ratio of the Wigner-Seitz radius to the ion core radius.Comment: submitted for publicatio

Affine crystal structure on rigged configurations of type D_n^(1)

Extending the work arXiv:math/0508107, we introduce the affine crystal action on rigged configurations which is isomorphic to the Kirillov-Reshetikhin crystal B^{r,s} of type D_n^(1) for any r,s. We also introduce a representation of B^{r,s} (r not equal to n-1,n) in terms of tableaux of rectangular shape r x s, which we coin Kirillov-Reshetikhin tableaux (using a non-trivial analogue of the type A column splitting procedure) to construct a bijection between elements of a tensor product of Kirillov-Reshetikhin crystals and rigged configurations.Comment: 26 pages, 3 figures. (v3) corrections in the proof reading. (v2) 26 pages; examples added; introduction revised; final version. (v1) 24 page