46 research outputs found
Motion of Confined Light-Driven Molecular Motors and Switches
Get PDFThe molecular motors discussed in this thesis are a great source of inspiration for many scientists for their ability to convert an input of energy into controlled motion. Much like a car engine converts the energy gained from the burning of fuel into mechanical motion, the molecular motor converts energy in the form of light into controlled rotational movement, but at a much smaller scale. Molecular motors are only a few nanometers in size. The motor consists of two halves connected by a rotational axis. Upon light irradiation one half does a rotational movement around that axis with respect to the other half. Just like a car engine is not able to move down a street by itself and only serves its function when connected to a transmission system, axis and wheels, the molecular motor needs to be integrated in a larger system in order to perform useful tasks. However, compared to the macroscopic world, different circumstances apply in such small size ranges. In contrast to macroscopic objects, molecules are constantly moving through space. When fabricating and operating a molecular motor the challenge lies in hindering the molecular motor from moving randomly, while still maintaining its ability to rotate upon light irradiation. The work in this thesis is mainly dedicated to the question on how to fabricate motors that can be integrated in or assembled on systems such as surfaces and solid porous materials and the study of their behavior in those confined spaces
Musikstädte as real and imaginary soundscapes: urban musical images as literary motifs in twentieth-century German modernism
No full textPhDThis study examines German literary images of musical life as part of the wider sound identity of the modern German city at the turn of the twentieth century. Focussing on a forty-year period from 1890 to 1930, synonymous with the emergence of the modern German metropolis as an aesthetic object, the project assesses, compares and contrasts how musical life in the Musikstädte was perceived and portrayed by writers in an increasingly noisy urban environment. How does urban musical life influence and condition city writings? What are the differences and similarities between the writings on various musical cities? Can an urban textual sound identity be derived from these differences and similarities? The approach employed to answer these questions is a new, cross-disciplinary one to urban sound in literature, moving beyond reading the key sounds of the urban soundscape using urban musicology, sensorial anthropology and cultural poetics towards a literary contextualisation of the urban aural experience.
The literary motifs of the symphony, the gramophone and urban noise are put under the spotlight through the analysis of a wide range of modernist works by authors who have a special relationship with music. At the centre of this analysis are the Kaffeehausliteratur authors Hermann Bahr, Alfred Polgar and Peter Altenberg, the then Munich-based author Thomas Mann and the lesser known René Schickele. The analysis of these particular works is framed in the music-geographical context of the Musikstadt and literary underpinnings of this topos, ranging from Ingeborg Bachmann to Hans Mayer and, once again, Thomas Mann. In analysing these texts, the methodological approach devised by Strohm, who identifies the blending of a range of urban sounds as a definition of urban space and identity, is applied. His ideas combine historical literary
analysis, musical history and urban sociology. They are rarely used in the analysis of the auditory environment.Arts and Humanities Research Council
Westfield TrustWestfield Trust Studentship
Arts and Humanities Reseach Council (AHRC
Grazia Deledda’s autobiographical masks
Get PDFAll’interno della produzione di Grazia Deledda, Cosima è il personaggio più autobiografico, come si può notare dagli esempi riportati. È anche possibile scorgere assonanze tra l’autrice ed altre tre figure femminili protagoniste delle sue opere: Regina, protagonista di Nostalgie, Nina di Il Paese del Vento e Maria Concezione di La chiesa della solitudine.Among Grazia Deledda’s characters, Cosima is the most autobiographical one, as we can notice from the examples. Concordance can be noticed between the author and the female characters of her works: Regina is the main character of Nostalgie, Nina in Il Paese del Vento and Maria Concezione in La chiesa della solitudine
Light‐driven Rotary Molecular Motors for Out‐of‐Equilibrium Systems
Get PDFThis chapter discusses whether rotary molecular motors are able to operate away from thermal equilibrium and whether this work on the molecular scale can be amplified across length scales and light-driven rotary motors. The chapter analyzes examples from literature demonstrating the ability of molecular motors to perform work, starting with examples in which a net output is generated by single molecules, followed by larger (supramolecular) systems. The molecular motors are overcrowded alkene switches, and the initial establishment of a photostationary state can be recognized as the photochemical equilibrium described for photoswitches. Surface immobilization is the possibilities to overcome Brownian motion and give opportunity to turn the relative rotation of one motor half with respect to the other into an absolute rotation of the motor with respect to the surface. Self-assembly opens up the possibility to work with very complex systems and enhance functions through cooperativity without the need of complicated synthesis of elaborate single molecules.</p
LE MASCHERE AUTOBIOGRAFICHE DI GRAZIA DELEDDA
Get PDFWithin the production of Grazia Deledda, Cosima is the most autobiographical character, as can be seen from the examples shown. It is also possible to see similarities between the author and three other female figures protagonists of her works: Regina, protagonist of Nostalgie, Nina of The Country of the Wind and Maria Concezione of The church of solitude.All’interno della produzione di Grazia Deledda, Cosima è il personaggio più autobiografico, come si può notare dagli esempi riportati. È anche possibile scorgere assonanze tra l’autrice ed altre tre figure femminili protagoniste delle sue opere: Regina, protagonista di Nostalgie, Nina di Il Paese del Vento e Maria Concezione di La chiesa della solitudine.
Abstract
Within the production of Grazia Deledda, Cosima is the most autobiographical character, as can be seen from the examples shown. It is also possible to see similarities between the author and three other female figures protagonists of her works: Regina, protagonist of Nostalgie, Nina of The Country of the Wind and Maria Concezione of The church of solitude
A Lucky Answer to a Fair Question
No full text The article discusses acceptance of evolution and its relevance for measuring scientific literacy. The author analyzes the National Science Foundation knowledge quiz in relation to theoretical, methodological, and moral arguments, proposing a distinction between quiet and animated scientific constructs. When a public learns of evolution as an animated construct, its acceptance is a poor indicator in a reflective model of scientific literacy. Acceptance of evolution may constitute a valuable indicator in reflective models of science knowledge for publics that engage with it disinterestedly, as well as in formative models of scientifically shaped worldviews, and it may also be studied in itself. </jats:p
Thinking Other People's Thoughts: Brian Holton's Translations from Classical Chinese into Scots
Get PDFBrian Holton (b. 1949), the only currently working translator of classical Chinese poetry into Scots, is here approached biographically, through his personal history and his career in translating and publishing. Holton's collection of his own translation materials, including drafts, proofs, scores, translations, notes, lectures, correspondence, and journalistic writings, has been made available to the author. As a voice of history, Holton's life and work constitute a subjective narrative that enters into debate, discussion, and interpretation with larger narratives, spheres of diffusion, and power relations. Hence the discussion touches on such matters as as language policy in education and national literatures, and issues of centre and periphery, foreignization and domestication
Semiotics of Allegory: Queerness in Contemporary Taiwan and Hong Kong Novel and Cinema
Get PDFThis project offers the framework of “semiotics of allegory” as an alternative to Fredric Jameson’s national allegory for studying non-Western cultural products by emphasising their plural meanings of signs and the importance of situating their reading in production discourse. Against Confucianism and Buddhism, a study of the semiotics of allegory focuses on the relationship between queer representations and the space, the image, the music, and the myth in four cultural texts. They are Pai Hsien-yung’s 白先勇 novel Niezi (孽子, Crystal Boys, 1983), Chu T’ien-wen’s 朱天文 novel Huangren shouji (荒人手記, Notes of a Desolate Man, 1994), Tsai Ming-liang’s 蔡明亮 film Heliu (河流 The River, 1997), and Wong Kar-wai’s 王家衛 film Ceon gwong zaa sit (春光乍洩 Happy Together, 1997). This project adopts Shih Shu-mei’s framework of Sinophone studies, Chen Kuan-hsing’s inter- Asian studies in Asia as Method, and the theories of Judith Butler, Roland Barthes, and Rebecca Braun. Judith Butler’s notions of queer performativity in Bodies That Matter (1993) and alternative kinship in Antigone’s Claim (2000) and “Is Kinship Always Already Heterosexual?” (2002) are relevant to studying the gays’ and queers’ agency and family relationships. Roland Barthes’ view on the process of writing, reading, and meaning-making as non-binary acts of creativity in Writing Degree Zero (1953), The Neutral (2002), and Empire of Signs (1970) are useful for the re-interpretation of these Sinophone allegories. Also, his thoughts about the excess of meaning in “The Third Meaning” (1970), his five-code module about the structuring or structuration of writerly text in S/Z (1970), his idea of punctum that emphasises affects (emotions) in Camera Lucida (1980), and his neologism of ideology-as-mask in language as “myth” in Mythologies (1957) will also be deployed. Lastly, bringing back the author to life from the Barthesian notion of “Death of the Author” by borrowing the world authorship researcher Rebecca Braun’s Bourdieusian idea of emphasising the “collaboration” and “interaction” between author and other players in the cultural production field, this study calls for the interpretations of non-Western cultures to go beyond literalism, geopolitics, and nationalism
The reputation, writing and sources of The young Cosima
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