Built-in Tension Research Articles

Echoing End: Fray Luis de León's "Oda en la Ascensión"

Echoing End:Fray Luis de León's "Oda en la Ascensión" Sonia Velázquez A concern with endings has been central to the study of narrative form as well as to inquiries into the cognitive and/or psychological desire for closure. In the stories we read, as much as in the stories we craft from chaotic experience into what we call our lives, "the end" represents a longing for the vanishing point of trauma, conflict, or uncertainty. From Walter Benjamin's meditations on storytelling to the psychoanalytic-inflected work of Peter Brooks, or Frank Kermode's classic lectures on the Sense of an Ending, endings have been inextricably bound to the meaning of narrative as such.1 Linked by analogy to our own mortality, narrative endings become for all these thinkers tiny rehearsals in dealing with death. What's more, Kermode argues, the end not only completes narrative as form but more importantly, it graces the story with meaning. And it is through this retrospection—the Archimedean external point from which the whole can be viewed and comprehended—that literary endings may provide readers with some consolation.2 [End Page 474] In contrast, with very few exceptions, little attention has been paid to lyric endings. Giorgio Agamben writes in 1996 with some urgency about the need to examine what he calls, "a poetic institution that has until now remained unidentified: the end of the poem" (109).3 Indeed, Barbara Herrnstein Smith's book Poetic Closure, which came out in 1968, one year after Kermode's, is the most exhaustive and systematic study of "how poems end" in the Anglo-American tradition. And while she claims in the introduction that she is more interested in matters of structure and form than in the psychological or existential aspects of "closure," she is as invested as Kermode in meaning-making; that is to say, in the proposition that literary works do not just stop but rather they come to an appropriate conclusion. A poem, unlike a sonata, she writes, does not simply end in a satisfactory resolution of built-in expectations and tensions but it also tells a story: "the argument is clinched, the catalogue of praise is exhausted, the lament is brought to some point of acceptable conclusion" (5). It is this last point that I wish to contest through an examination of the end (or really the ends) of Fray Luis de León's "Oda en la Ascensión." Agamben's work is also aware of the double citizenship of poetic form in both the realms of the semantic and the semiotic (109), but for him, the "end of the poem" is not the place where these two aspects of language finally coincide. Instead, the "end of the poem" enacts the impossibility of the fulfillment of sense and the completion of form.3 He takes as point of departure a definition of poetry as the linguistic event where the possibility of enjambment—the hesitation of sound or rhythm to follow sense—exists.4 From this perspective, then, the end of the poem is at once part of the poem and separate from it; unable to run into the next line, the end does not belong to poetry. That is why, according to him, poems resist coming to this end and poets create devices such as the envoi or the rhyming couplet which allow the poem to conclude by breaking from what came before so that in fact it is something else that ends. The end of the poem thus resists the philosophical dream of the ultimate coincidence of logos and phone—of achieving final comprehension by "collapsing into silence." This silence, in turn, reveals the poem's true end according [End Page 475] to Agamben: "to let language finally communicate itself, without remaining unsaid in what is said" (115). As will become clear in what follows, not all poems follow the Italian philosopher all the way to this communicative silence. But I do take to heart Agamben's warning not to confuse ending with closure as well as his call for readers to attend to the workings of the last verse as a privileged site of insights into...

Prospects of High-Ge-Content Strained SiGe for Advanced FinFET Generations

High mobility materials such as strained Si1-xGexor III-V are promising channel candidates for advanced FinFET generations. By incorporation of moderate Ge content (x~0.2-0.3) into the channel of FinFETs, we have demonstrated pMOSFETs with superior extrinsic and intrinsic electrical characteristics suitable for 10nm technology generations and beyond [1]. To further boost pMOS FinFET performance, High-Ge-Content (HGC) SiGe FETs have recently drawn significant attention due to their enhanced transport and reliability properties and compatibility with bulk or SOI substrates [2, 3]. In addition, compared to strained pure germanium, they can offer reduced off-state tunneling leakage due to their relatively larger bandgap [4]. It has been observed that with high-Ge content around x~0.7, superior hole mobility values are achievable for planar biaxial strained SiGe on relaxed buffer layers and the mobility sensitivity to the strain level from underlying relaxed buffer is small when the buffer Ge content is above 30% [5]. Thus, HGC SiGe is an attractive pFET candidate especially when considered as a counterpart for nFET with s-Si FinFET technology [6], where higher Ge content is indeed required to compensate the built-in tension of s-Si. Utilization of HGC SiGe in a FinFET architecture by direct epitaxial growth is quite challenging due to very low (sub-10nm) epitaxial critical thickness constraints, resulting in high levels of defectivity which may be detrimental to the device functionality. In advanced FinFET technologies, relatively tall fins in tight pitches are required to increase the current per foot print and this may be quite challenging for high-Ge content strained SiGe FinFETs. Alternate approaches such as enhanced 3D Ge condensation [3] may be considered to mitigate the aforementioned issue. On the other hand, gate stack and interface passivation of SiGe with mid to high Ge range is more challenging than pure Si or pure Ge channel MOSFETs. While traditionally Si cap has been used to passivate the SiGe MOSFETs, this approach may not be optimal for scaled nodes where scaled EOT is required for electrostatics integrity of the transistors. Most devices fabricated using a Si-cap-free approach exhibit high levels of interface trap densities leading to mobility degradation and increased sub-threshold leakage. Moreover, enhance trap assisted tunneling can happen in the off state for high-Ge content SiGe due to its lower bandgap. In this talk, we review IBM's recent research activities on HGC SiGe FinFETs with Ge content over 50%. In particular, gate stack, passivation and EOT scaling are major factors in achieving high quality devices based on HGC SiGe. We present our results based on a Si-cap-free surface passivation combined with aggressive EOT scaling down to sub-7Å to achieve acceptable sub-threshold swings for both gate first and replacement high-K/metal gate FinFET integration flows. The width dependence of hole mobility for various device sizes from very wide (planar) to ultra-narrow (scaled FinFETs) would be presented and discussed in detail. In addition, various short channel device aspects such as impact of S/D junction process on performance and electrostatics, off-state leakage current, transconductance and current drive would be discussed. We conclude that high-Ge content SiGe FinFETs are suitable candidates for advanced high-performance logic FinFET applications, especially at low operating voltages (VDD), while their suitability for low or ultra-low power applications is questionable.

Untangling Uncertainty: A Study of the Discourses Shaping Clinical Ethics Consultation as a Professional Practice

This qualitative social scientific interview study delves into the ways in which professional vision is constructed in clinical ethics consultation (CEC). The data consist of 11 semi-structured interviews that were conducted with clinical ethics consultants currently working in hospitals in one major urban area in the U.S. The interviews were analyzed with the qualitative research method of critical discourse analysis, with a focus on identifying the cultural structures of knowledge that shape CEC as a professional practice. The discourses were first identified as belonging to two higher discourse categories, order and agency. Order was divided into three lower categories, emotional, managerial, and rational order, and discourses of agency into the lower categories of exploration, technique, deliberation, and distancing. An additional discourse of neutral interaction was identified as a bridging discourse, activated to level tensions emerging out of conflicting goals and agencies embedded in CEC practice. This analysis brings out as its main observation that clinical ethics consultants draw on and shift between potentially ideologically conflicting social positions that can create built-in tensions within the professional domain. The study calls attention to these tensions and suggests for the professional group to discuss the possibility of defining priorities between different kinds of order, identified in this study, that shape the CEC domain.

A new reading of Binchois'sMon seul et souverain desir

ABSTRACTThe copyist of the manuscript Oxford, Bodleian Library, Canon. Misc. 213 was detailed and well versed in numerous notational styles, and as a result, examples of unusual notation in this manuscript have drawn a critical eye. Yet the unique transcription of Binchois's rondeauMon seul et souverain desir, in which the copyist alternates between the two common note shapes for the semiminim in the cantus voice, has thus far gone unexplained. This notation has no rhythmic significance; as such, it appears to be a superficial anomaly. In this article, I lay out a rationale for a reading of the notation of the semiminims in this piece as potentially deliberate and meaningful. Over the course of compiling the manuscript, the copyist increasingly aligned semiminim shape with prolation: the full-black shape is used exclusively in minor prolation, whereas the void flagged shape becomes more frequently restricted to major prolation. Since the rondeau is in minor prolation, I suggest that the copyist might have used the void flagged figure in order to suggest a momentary shift into major prolation. In so doing, the copyist might have left to us a witness of a performance practice in which the mensural and rhythmic possibilities inherent in the built-in tension betweenandwere explored.

Mechanical and vibrational responses of gate-tunable graphene resonator

The vibrational mechanical properties of gate-tunable graphene resonator were investigated in detail using finite element analysis (FEA) and simulation. Treating the graphene resonator as a two-dimensional (2D) thin plate, the relationship between resonance frequency and driving force was explored. The effects of built-in tension, adsorbates and graphene size on the performance of resonator including resonance frequency and tunability were also studied. It was shown that resonance frequency could be tuned by the electrostatically induced average tension due to driving force, and exponentially increased with increasing driving force. When the single-layer graphene resonator without any adsorbates had no or very small built-in tension, the tunability of resonator was greater. However, for a high-frequency-range resonator, the resonator with high built-in tension should be used. The simulation results suggested potential applications of graphene resonators tuned by a driving force, such as widely tunable or ultrahigh frequency nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) devices.

Gender and Security Sector Reform: Gendering Differently?

Recent efforts to implement gender mainstreaming in the field of security sector reform have resulted in an international policy discourse on gender and security sector reform (GSSR). Critics have challenged GSSR for its focus on ‘adding women’ and its failure to be transformative. This article contests this assessment, demonstrating that GSSR is not only about ‘adding women’, but also, importantly, about ‘gendering men differently’ and has important albeit problematic transformative implications. Drawing on poststructuralist and postcolonial feminist theory, I propose a critical reading of GSSR policy discourse in order to analyse its built-in logics, tensions and implications. I argue that this discourse establishes a powerful ‘grid of intelligibility’ that draws on gendered and racialized dualisms to normalize certain forms of subjectivity while rendering invisible and marginalizing others, and contributing to reproduce certain forms of normativity and hierarchy. Revealing such processes of discursive in/exclusion and marginalized subjectivities can serve as a starting point to challenge and transform GSSR practice and identify sites of contestation.

"I Want to Pump You Up!" Lance Armstrong, Alex Rodriguez, and the Biopolitics of Data- and Analogue-Flesh

"I Want to Pump You Up!" Lance Armstrong, Alex Rodriguez, and the Biopolitics of Data- and Analogue-Flesh

The Patterns of Doctrinal Development in the Jurisprudence of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on State Obligations

The paper sets out to assess the doctrinal and theoretical developments driven by the ambition to demonstrate the feasibility (and practicability) of economic and social rights – and to generate political momentum for strengthening the institutional forms of implementing them. The paper focuses on doctrinal devices that came to be built into the jurisprudence of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural rights on state obligations and responsibilities, like the tripartite categorisation of state obligations (‘respect’, ‘protect’ and ‘fulfil’) and the idea of ‘minimum core obligations.’ Doctrinal development in this area relies heavily on conceptual devices by scholars (as opposed to the jurisprudence of domestic or regional courts), and it has led to a gradual reconstitution of state responsibilities as reflected in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It deals with the built-in tensions of the institutional setup envisaged by the ICESCR in a particular way. It is argued that doctrinal development in this area came to channel choices between visions of state responsibility: it has created a legal and political dynamics that leads towards unfolding a ‘violationist’ conception of state responsibility – and side-lines other, often more realistic or imaginative ways of implementing economic and social rights.

Mindfulness i självhjälpskulturen – en svårtolkad motsägelse

This article sheds light on the ways that mindfulness self-help literature carries with it a number of built-in tensions. First, mindfulness questions whether there exists a fixed self, yet the self-help genre’s focus on a You that is encouraged to change – a self that is performing work on itself – seems to reinforce the notion of a self. Second, though mindfulness is demarcated as something different than quick-fix techniques for self-improvement, the reader is presented with numerous techniques and methods for observing, assessing, testing and documenting the self. Third, while destructive thoughts and emotions are not to be “fixed” or resisted, the explicit goal is to become free of them. Finally, although mindfulness refers to our stressful and self-absorbed culture as a problem, part of its cultural dissemination has been through a genre that more than others emphasize self-investigation as a pathway to self-improvement.

Elastic properties of graphene suspended on a polymer substrate by e-beam exposure

A method for fabricating multiple free-standing structures on the same sheet of graphene is demonstrated. Mechanically exfoliated mono- and bilayer graphene sheets were sandwiched between two layers of polymethyl-methacrylate. Suspended areas were defined by e-beam exposure allowing precise control over their shape and position. Mechanical characterization of suspended graphene sheets was performed by nanoindentation with an atomic force microscopy tip. The obtained built-in tensions of 12 nN are significantly lower than those in suspended graphene exfoliated on an SiO2 substrate, and therefore permit access to the intrinsic properties of this material system.

Elastic Properties of Chemically Derived Single Graphene Sheets

The elastic modulus of freely suspended graphene monolayers, obtained via chemical reduction of graphene oxide, was determined through tip-induced deformation experiments. Despite their defect content, the single sheets exhibit an extraordinary stiffness ( E = 0.25 TPa) approaching that of pristine graphene, as well as a high flexibility which enables them to bend easily in their elastic regime. Built-in tensions are found to be significantly lower compared to mechanically exfoliated graphene. The high resilience of the sheets is demonstrated by their unaltered electrical conductivity after multiple deformations. The electrical conductivity of the sheets scales inversely with the elastic modulus, pointing toward a 2-fold role of the oxygen bridges, that is, to impart a bond reinforcement while at the same time impeding the charge transport.

The Partial Object, the Ideal Ego, The Ego-Ideal, and the Empty Subject: Four Degrees of Differentiation within Narcissism

Overall, Freud’s theory has a built-in tension and ambiguity between a developmental and a structural concept of narcissism. On the developmental side, Freud (1911) first conceived of narcissism as a phase of sexual development wherein the individual begins taking his or her own body as a love object. In line with this perspective, Freud defined primary narcissism as corresponding to the ego-representation involved in this sexual phase of development, where the ego loves the image of his or her own body. Secondary narcissism was then defined as a regressive and pathological return to the primary narcissism of early childhood. Narcissism in this account is a primitive and temporary phase of development that, if unchecked, becomes ultimately pathological. The narcissistic or ego-centered phase of development, in which an object relationship does not exist, needs to be abandoned in favor of a more advanced object-oriented phase of development. However, the limitation of establishing an absolute developmental difference between a narcissistic and an object phase of development is that subject and object co-arise or mutually determine each other. Narcissistic and object love are interrelated. On the other hand, in his paper on narcissism, Freud (1914) considers the ego as a reservoir of libidinal cathexis from whence the latter are issued toward objects. Laplanche and Pontalis (1973) have pointed out that such an energetic definition presupposes a structural rather than a stadial or temporal conception of narcissism. These authors also note that Freud differentiated autoerotism from narcissism by emphasizing a lack of

The origins and regulation of tissue tension: Identification of collagen tension-fixation process in vitro

The absence of a controllable in vitro model of soft tissue remodeling is a major impediment, limiting our understanding of collagen pathologies, tissue repair and engineering. Using 3D fibroblast-collagen lattice model, we have quantified changes in matrix tension and material properties following remodeling by blockade of cell-generated tension with cytochalasin D. This demonstrated a time-dependent shortening of the collagen network, progressively stabilized into a built-in tension within the matrix. This was differentially enhanced by TGFB1 and mechanical loading to give subtle control of the new, remodeled matrix material properties. Through this model, we have been able to identify the ‘tension remodeling’ process, by which cells control material properties in response to environmental factors.

The Particular Logic of Modernity

A friend once said to me that he would be glad to discuss postmodemity if only he knew what modernity meant. There are so many descriptions. We're all modern: Modern society, modern art, modern philosophy, modern science, modern technologies. The reformation, the wars of religion, the American revolution, the French revolution, the Paris Commune, the world wars. Civil society, capitalism, the liberal state, the procedural state. Luther, Galileo, Descartes, Locke, Kant, Manet, Cézanne, Rawls, Warhol. But also Novalis, Nietzsche, Heidegger and the German cultural conservatives. Derrida, Bataille, Levinas, Pynchon. And so forth.Here is Robert Pippin's enumeration of what he sees as the common features of modern societies:The new conception of nature required by modern science; the post-Cartesian notion of mind as subjective consciousness; a political world of passion-driven but rationally calculating individuals, or a “post-Protestant” world of individually self-reliant, responsible agents; a new political language of rights and equality; and, most of all, a common hope: that a secular, rational basis for moral and political order could be found and safely relied on, could inspire the allegiance and commitment necessary for the vitality and reproduction of a society. (I2)Hegel had his own theory of modern life and thought, centering around the culmination of spirit's teleology in objective and absolute spirit, based on the logical patterns of the movement of spirit's development. Modern times brought decisive liberations and completions, but also permanent tensions, and a loss of immediate rootedness in a natural or social home. Modern selves are strong enough to be bei sich in the midst of modern tensions and negativities, but it takes work and maturity to deal with the inner complexities of modern thought and the built-in tensions of modern institutions.

Good, Bad, or 'Necessary Evil'?

The embargo system--a decades-old gentlemen9s agreement between science journals and reporters that keeps information from scientific reports secret until a journal publishes it--is under growing pressure. The system offers advantages for everybody involved: Journals get maximum publicity, journalists get time to report complex stories, and scientists get more widespread and more accurate public exposure for their work. But it is also wracked by built-in tensions: It can erect barriers to the free exchange of scientific information through which advances are made; it rules out the scoops on which newspapers and their reporters thrive; and it has created new problems when information that can send a company9s stock price soaring is distributed to hundreds of journalists under an embargo. But the biggest threat is coming from Web-based publishing, which is speeding up the communication of findings outside the usual embargoed channels and making print publication dates somewhat arbitrary.

A new condenser microphone with a p + silicon membrane

This paper presents the results of investigations which have led to the batch fabrication of a new condenser microphone and the subsequent measurement of its characteristics. With an overall size of 3 × 4 × 0.8 mm 3 including an hybrid JFET, the microphone has an integrated back-chamber and is achieved with a very simple IC-compatible process comprising only five photolithography steps. The diaphragm has a thickness of 1 μm. It is fabricated with the classical EDP boron etch-stop technique. Frequency responses of the microphone with a bias voltage of 20 V show sensitivities of 3.5 and 0.4 mV/Pa, depending on the fabrication parameters; the corresponding bandwidths are 2.5 and 20 kHz, respectively. Two methods of measurement have been set up in order to determine the built-in tension of heavily boron-doped silicon and have led to the same value of 70 MPa.

Low-field galvanomagnetic properties of the quasi-two-dimensional electron gas in gated n-AlGaAs/GaAs heterostructures

Electrical properties of the quasi-two-dimensional (Q2D) electron gas are investigated theoretically at 77 K in gated modulation-doped n-AlGaAs/GaAs heterostructures under low crossed electric and magnetic fields. Trends in real-space band structure, probability density, channel carrier density and galvanomagnetic transport coefficients are examined as functions of gate voltage, spacer thickness, doping density and doping-layer thickness. Together, these properties control current-carrying capacity, switching speed and other important characteristics of Q2D gas devices. The model uses a variational form for the envelope wavefunction in the self-consistent calculation of band structure and spatial carrier distribution, solves the Boltzmann transport equation by an exact numerical procedure, and uses the calculated distribution function to compute galvanomagnetic coefficients. Only the lowest subband is assumed to be populated appreciably. The results address two issues in growth and substrate technology. Firstly, the relative influence of p-type compared with n-type background doping in the active layer on these trends is examined. Such information allows the qualitative comparison of equivalent structures grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) and by organometallic vapour-phase epitaxy (OMVPE). Secondly, certain effects of stress on electrical properties are analysed. The latter effects could limit the current-carrying capacity of Q2D devices fabricated on Si substrates where a built-in biaxial tension is known to exist.

Remarques sur la violence dans l'idéologie bouddhique et la pratique sociale à Sri Lanka (Ceylan)

Remarks on Violence in Buddhist Ideology and Social Practice in Sri Lanka Contrary to a common opinion, the Buddhist discourse on violence is essentially ambivalent. A casuistry built up during two milleniums of interaction with the lay society interprets violence as legitimate when used for the defense of the Doctrine, while condemning it in social relations inside the Buddhist polity. The history fo Sri Lanka is a case in point. The rise of violence, which is assuming a critical dimension in communal relations, may be understood as the product of the breakdown of traditional values under the colonial and post-colonial impact, or else as the modern form of the built-in tensions of any Buddhist society.