Visual stress, its treatment with spectral filters, and its relationship to visually induced motion sickness

We review the concept of visual stress and its relation to neurological disease. Visual stress can occur from the observation of images with unnatural spatial structure and an excess of contrast energy at spatial frequencies to which the visual system is generally most sensitive. Visual stress can often be reduced using spectral filters, provided the colour is selected with precision to suit each individual. The use of such filters and their effects on reading speed are reviewed. The filters have been shown to benefit patients with a variety of neurological conditions other than reading difficulty, all associated with an increased risk of seizures. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd

Out West

In this essay, Joe Wilkins writes about growing up hard in eastern Montana. This essay was a finalist for a 2010 National Magazine Award in the Essay category

Notes from the Bulls: The Unedited Journals of Verl Newman

This short story by Joe Wilkins originally appeared in Orion

All the Forces at Work Here

In this essay by Joe Wilkins, a mistake is straightened out with the help of a family friend

Does reflective supervision have a future in English local authority child and family social work?

Purpose – (1) to discuss the underlying assumption that social workers need reflective supervision specifically, as opposed to managerial or any other form of supervision or support; and (2) to consider whether our focus on the provision of reflective supervision may be preventing us from thinking more broadly and creatively about what support local authority child and family social workers need and how best to provide it. Methodology/approach – Argument based on own research and selective review of the literature Findings – Reflective supervision has no future in local authority child and family social work because (1) there is no clear understanding of what reflective supervision is, (2) there is no clear evidence for is effectiveness, and (3) a sizeable proportion of local authority child and family social workers in England do not receive reflective supervision and many never have. Originality/value – Challenges the received wisdom about the value of reflective supervision and advocates exploring alternative models for supporting best practice in child and family social work

A construction of the quantum Steenrod squares and their algebraic relations

We construct a quantum deformation of the Steenrod square construction on closed monotone symplectic manifolds, based on the work of Fukaya, Betz and Cohen. We prove quantum versions of the Cartan and Adem relations. We compute the quantum Steenrod squares for all CP n and give the means of computation for all toric varieties. As an application, we also describe two examples of blowups along a subvariety, in which a quantum correction of the Steenrod square on the blowup is determined by the classical Steenrod square on the subvariety.Comment: 68 pages, 13 figures. v3: paper as accepted for publication by Geometry & Topology after peer review, uploaded as per MSP open-access policy. Changes: the title is now correctly capitalised. Updated contact details in the paper. Multiple small changes were made across the paper since v2, mainly to make the exposition cleare

Explain: Extinct

Associate Professor Joe Wilkins and his family spent the summer and fall of 2015 living in an off-the-grid cabin in the Klamath Mountains above the Rogue River of southwest Oregon. His poem Explain: Extinct grew out of that time on the Rogue

Quantum Steenrod Squares and the Equivariant Pair-of-Pants in Symplectic Cohomology

We relate the quantum Steenrod square to Seidel's equivariant pair-of-pants product for open convex symplectic manifolds that are either monotone or exact, using an equivariant version of the PSS isomorphism. We proceed similarly for $\mathbb{Z}/2$-equivariant symplectic cohomology, using an equivariant version of the continuation and $c^*$-maps. We prove a symplectic Cartan relation, pointing out the difficulties in stating it. We give a nonvanishing result for the equivariant pair-of-pants product for some elements of $SH^*(T^* S^n)$. We finish by calculating the symplectic square for the negative line bundles $M = \text{Tot}(\mathcal{O}(-1) \rightarrow \mathbb{CP}^m)$, proving an equivariant version of a result due to Ritter.Comment: 46 pages, 12 figures. v2 changes: the symplectic manifolds considered are now either monotone or exact (not weakly monotone). More discussion of transversality requirements (in advance of a more detailed treatment in the new version of a previous paper). More detailed preliminaries. Slight aesthetic changes to some proof

Of Blood and Bone

In this essay, Joe Wilkins muses on the loss of a corporeal knowledge of death