What Rock Reveals

To understand the 1960s, students can learn much by listening to the music that defined the era

Students follow the Beatles\u27 path from Liverpool to London

To actually see where the Beatles grew up and made their music is akin to visiting Stratford-upon-Avon when you’re studying Shakespeare. To the extent that it’s possible, you can put yourself in the pictur

Mechano-transduction: from molecules to tissues.

External forces play complex roles in cell organization, fate, and homeostasis. Changes in these forces, or how cells respond to them, can result in abnormal embryonic development and diseases in adults. How cells sense and respond to these mechanical stimuli requires an understanding of the biophysical principles that underlie changes in protein conformation and result in alterations in the organization and function of cells and tissues. Here, we discuss mechano-transduction as it applies to protein conformation, cellular organization, and multi-cell (tissue) function

Outflow from and asymmetries in the nebula around the LBV candidate Sk-69 279

We present and discuss new long-slit Echelle spectra of the LMC LBV candidate Sk-69 279 and put them in context with previous images and spectra. While at first glance a simple spherically expanding symmetric shell, we find a considerably more complex morphology and kinematics. The spectra indicate that morphologically identified deviations from sphericity are outflows of faster material out of the main body of Sk-69 279. The morphological as well as the kinematic similarity with other LBV nebulae makes it likely that Sk-69 279 is an LBV candidate, indeed, and poses the question in how far outflows out of expanding LBV nebulae are a general property of such nebulae--at least during some phases of their evolutions

Rotational levels in quantum dots

Low energy spectra of isotropic quantum dots are calculated in the regime of low electron densities where Coulomb interaction causes strong correlations. The earlier developed pocket state method is generalized to allow for continuous rotations. Detailed predictions are made for dots of shallow confinements and small particle numbers, including the occurance of spin blockades in transport.Comment: RevTeX, 10 pages, 2 figure

W. Michael Weis

Weis recalls Myers wanting IWU\u27s niche to be the multi-talented and sold everyone on the idea that IWU was already great and would be better. Prior to Myers there was a micro university focus and he supported that. Provost McNew was focused on establishing a liberal arts ideal; Myers didn\u27t oppose that idea but also wanted to keep Nursing. He wanted to expand and grow the University and the faculty supported him. Myers inculcated a love of collecting among people and speculates that collecting helps you think about all the things surrounding the object--time period, materials--that it helps broaden perspective on how the world operates. Weis recalls the last conversation he had with Myers, the auction, and that had Myers lived, he may have donated his whole collection at a later time. Library micro-managing took place because of Myers\u27 love of books and his desire to manipulate reports to others (US News & World Reports ranking). Weis concluded Myers was a true Renaissance man who loved life, and he is not sure what he would have done next in his presidency

Pomelo, a tool for computing Generic Set Voronoi Diagrams of Aspherical Particles of Arbitrary Shape

We describe the development of a new software tool, called "Pomelo", for the calculation of Set Voronoi diagrams. Voronoi diagrams are a spatial partition of the space around the particles into separate Voronoi cells, e.g. applicable to granular materials. A generalization of the conventional Voronoi diagram for points or monodisperse spheres is the Set Voronoi diagram, also known as navigational map or tessellation by zone of influence. In this construction, a Set Voronoi cell contains the volume that is closer to the surface of one particle than to the surface of any other particle. This is required for aspherical or polydisperse systems. Pomelo is designed to be easy to use and as generic as possible. It directly supports common particle shapes and offers a generic mode, which allows to deal with any type of particles that can be described mathematically. Pomelo can create output in different standard formats, which allows direct visualization and further processing. Finally, we describe three applications of the Set Voronoi code in granular and soft matter physics, namely the problem of packings of ellipsoidal particles with varying degrees of particle-particle friction, mechanical stable packings of tetrahedra and a model for liquid crystal systems of particles with shapes reminiscent of pearsComment: 4 pages, 9 figures, Submitted to Powders and Grains 201