Critical Interest Research Articles

All-fiber supercontinuum absorption spectroscopy for mid-infrared gas sensing

The development of compact fiber-based light sources emitting over a wide wavelength range in the mid-infrared and their application to the detection of greenhouse gases and volatile organic compounds still remain of critical interest. In the present work, we make use of several dedicated infrared fibers for implementing a mid-infrared optical device pumped by a thulium doped-fiber laser around 1.965 μm that simultaneously enables a first nonlinear stage of frequency conversion and supercontinuum generation and a second linear stage of gas absorption spectroscopy. As a proof-of-principle, we carry out mid-infrared supercontinuum absorption spectroscopy of methane around 7.7 μm by means of a hollow-core fiber-based gas cell combined to a commercial Fourier-transform infrared spectrometer. Our all-fiber configuration operating in the femtosecond regime at megahertz repetition rate allows the detection of methane concentrations as low as 20 ppm.

Philosophical and Moral Issues of Organ Transplantation at the Close of the Twentieth Century.

Editor's note: Organ transplantation and the associated ethical topics such as the criteria for brain death continue to be of critical interest to Catholics, both physician and lay. Thirty years ago, Fr. Joseph Howard took a look at the philosophical and moral aspects of organ transplantation, and his words are still relevant today. New, recent insights into the residual functioning of the brain in the face of extensive injuries pose an additional question for Catholic physicians: to what extent do we owe a duty to our patients to explain to them the nature of the uncertainties and debates surrounding both donation and transplantation, in order for them to make an informed decision for themselves or their loved ones? Linacre Quarterly. 1994 Nov;61(4):57-64.

Imagined Communities of Chinese International Graduates in Australia and New Zealand

ABSTRACTThe rapid increase in the number of international graduates seeking employment opportunities in host countries has been accompanied by a corresponding growth in related discourse regarding how international students could successfully benefit from post‐study work visa schemes and whether or not they are ‘career‐ready’ in local job markets. This study focuses on the linguistic capital among international graduates during their study–work transition processes. The qualitative analysis highlights that international graduates encounter various language‐related challenges during their transitions. However, their increased investment in English could not be simply interpreted as actions to overcome the language‐related challenges that they had encountered but was also for gaining access to their imagined communities, achieving non‐linguistic goals and employment outcomes. The study draws implications for understanding how international graduates could be better accommodated and encouraged to participate in the wider communities in their host countries. This is important knowledge, as enhancing employment outcomes is not only a goal for students pursuing international education but also of critical interest to countries seeking to sustain the international education industry.

“We Know Little About the Early Bryusov...”: The Work of the Poet-Symbolist as Reflected in the Scholarly Heritage of N. K. Gudziy

The article attempts to talk about that part of the scholarly heritage of the literary historian, textual critic, teacher N.K. Gudziy, which is dedicated to the work of the poet, prose writer, literary critic, translator, public figure V.Ya. Bryusov. Based on unpublished archival materials, printed works, materials from Gudziy’s personal archive and correspondence, the scholar’s contribution to the development of domestic “Bruce studies” is characterized, and the main circumstances that influenced the formation of his reading and research interest in this topic are identified. In addition, the background to the birth of Gudziy’s main scholarly works, dedicated to Bryusov and the early stage of the formation of Russian symbolism, is presented, and the scholar’s active work at the 2nd Moscow State University, the State Academy of Artistic Sciences, and the “Circle in Memory of Valery Bryusov” is considered from the point of view of the researcher’s movement towards chosen topic and object of critical interest. The presented materials allow us to trace the fate of several research subjects – the history of early Russian symbolism, Bryusov’s youthful creativity, the change of his creative and critical interests, the role of the literary environment in the poet's life – from their birth and systematization of archival materials to printed embodiment.

“I’ve Read You Right—I’m With You Now”: Aesthetic Reading in Virginia Woolf's Metafictional Short Stories

“I’ve read you right—I’m with you now”: Aesthetic Reading in Virginia Woolf’s Metafictional Short Stories. Despite critical interest in Virginia Woolf’s intense preoccupation with the imaginative process at the root of literary creation, little attention has been paid to the manner in which, through metafiction, the writer turns her short stories into reflections upon the nature of reading. In works such as “An Unwritten Novel” (1921) and “The Lady in the Looking-Glass. A Reflection” (1926), the boundaries between literature and criticism, between fiction and reality, take center stage and it is precisely this point of convergence that metafictional works take as subject matter. Thus, Virginia Woolf’s ‘character-reading’ makes its way into her stories and the author’s critical stance upon the act of reading, revealed primarily in her essays, is now transmitted thematically through characters who appropriate the readers’ active construction of meaning while living in the same textual world inhabited by the fictitious characters they ardently wish to interpret. Through the advancement of a specific type of reading: active, emotive, empathetic, fluid, inquisitive, intimate and indeterminate, yet always close to the text it is engaged with, Virginia Woolf may be said to prefigure the type of transactional reader-response criticism underpinned by Louise Rosenblatt, whose insistence upon aesthetic reading calls for a two-way transmission of meaning that is simultaneously constitutive of the literary work and of the reader’s self. Keywords: Virginia Woolf, metafiction, aesthetic reading, short story, reader-response criticism, Louise Rosenblatt

Flag of convenience and the tragedy of the commons in maritime transportation

Flag of convenience (FOC) refers to the practice of registering ships in foreign countries to benefit from lax regulations. While FOC offers several short-term cost advantages to ship owners and FOC countries, it poses significant threats to critical international interests, including environmental protection and marine habitat preservation. Despite global outrage and concerns over FOC's environmental impact, the number of FOC ships have continued to rise. Using game theory, we illustrate how individual rationality – opting for FOC to maximize economic benefits – leads to adverse outcomes for the common good, resulting in increased marine pollution, that we refer to as the tragedy of the commons. Our findings have implications for understanding the strategic behaviour of key players in the maritime transportation, revealing the dark side of globalization and stressing the need for stronger international cooperation to shift these behaviours.

Evaluating the Reliability of Machine Learning Predictors in m6A-SNP Association Analysis: A Comparative Study Using m6A-QTL Data

Introduction: N6-Methyladenosine (m6A) plays a crucial role in determining the fate of RNA after transcription. Understanding the downstream functions of individual m6A sites is of critical interest in epitranscriptomics. In published studies, two main approaches have been used to decipher the specific impact of m6A sites on gene expression and disease/traits: the m6A quantitative trait loci (m6A-QTL) and in-silico mutation prediction by Machine Learning (ML) models. However, earlier works still lack independent validation for the performance of ML-based methods. Methods: In this study, we use m6A-QTL as ground truth to evaluate the outcomes of in-silico mutation models. We benchmark both the newly trained machine learning models using genomic or sequence features and the existing model inference results published in in-silico mutationdependent databases against m6A-QTL. Results: We found that the consistency between in-silico mutation and m6A-QTL is weak, regardless of the ML algorithms and predictive features used. This trend was also consistent across multiple published databases based on in-silico mutation, including RMDisease2, m6AVar, and RMVar. Conclusion: These results highlight the importance of critical empirical evaluations for ML models in future SNP-m6A association studies and suggest the need for more high-quality m6A-QTL experiments to guide model development.

An efficient physics-dimension-based reduction method for computing frequency response functions of viscoelastically damped systems

The frequency response functions (FRFs) are of critical interest to dynamic problems, however, they suffer from computational challenges for viscoelastically damped systems. In this paper, a physics-space-based reduction method is proposed for predicting the FRFs of large-scale viscoelastically damped systems involving the standard linear solid model. A physics-dimension subspace is constructed based on original system matrices and viscoelastic parameters, which can be easily generated by using a recursive manner. A projection basis generation algorithm is then developed to generate a standard orthonormal basis within the physics-dimension subspace. With the help of the standard orthonormal basis and the moment-matching-based reduction method, a physics-space-based reduction method is proposed for efficiently predicting the FRFs of large-scale viscoelastically damped systems. Unlike the widely used state-space reduction method, the reduced system of the proposed method can preserve system’s physical structure so that the physical meaning can be captured. Using both theoretical and numerical analyses, the proposed physics-space-based method is more accurate and efficient than the state-space-based reduction method.

The Nomos of the Water: Indigenous Narrative Identity Claims to Justify Granting Legal Personhood to a River

Abstract This article, anchored in Indigenous narratives, identifies the core arguments for granting juridical personhood to rivers and appointing Indigenous citizens as their legal guardians. The core arguments are as follows: for Indigenous peoples, dwelling on riverbanks is a matter of identity. This identity manifests itself through various interpersonal practices, including language – thus, narratives – and caring. The analysis of sampled narratives has uncovered valid rationales for granting legal personhood to rivers due to identities common for rivers and their dwellers, rivers’ specific capabilities, and their actantial features (rivers can act). Both legal personhood for rivers and Indigenous dwellers being in the role of their legal guardians are unique legal institutions to fulfil the critical interests and capabilities of rivers at a time when these fragile ecosystems are under threat. We illustrate this by using the Amazon and Oder rivers as examples and referring to the Yanomami’s and Olga Tokarczuk’s narrative accounts.

The Effect of The Prodigy-Assisted Game_Based_Learning Model On Critical Thinking And Interest

The Effect of The Prodigy-Assisted Game_Based_Learning Model On Critical Thinking And Interest

Rhetoric Of The Question, The Dialogue Of Poetic Vision, A Reading Of Samples From The Collection Of "Sukrat Al - Qamar " By Amal Al-Qasim

The poetic question is a subject that is expanding in critical studies to the extent, which is formed a private critical space. The poetic question was able to excrete during the reading a remarkable aesthetic and rhetorical aesthetic. It doubled the interest of critics and creators together and created dialogues between text and its recipients. Here in this research, the Dialogic means is not in the concept of the Bakhtni that depends on the intersexuality, but in its communicative concept for searching to the effectiveness of the poet in creating interactive dialogue between him and the implicit reader within the text and his default reader out of the text. This question dialogic creates a poetics distinctive and takes the technical reasons for dialogue from the technical side and even qualitative, and the question with elegance’s poetic. With this vision’s reading we have tried to analyze two patterns from poems of poet Amal AL-Qasim called (Cuffed eloquence) and (Sura water) which are standing on the poetic question to search inside both of the patterns on Aesthetic toward poetic and his ability to deepen the significance of the text and find out the poetic’s idealism and poetics.

Teaching astronomy in Romania and the Republic of Moldova: its impact on students’ education

This article analyzes the evolution of astronomy teaching in the Romanian area, from its ancient roots to the modern era, the authors focusing on the situation in the last decades in Romania and the Republic of Moldova. Astronomy, one of the oldest sciences, has a great significance in human culture and education. In Romania, the teaching of astronomy began formally in 1776, but it has fluctuated over time. In the medieval era, astronomy was linked to religious education, while in modern times, it has been integrated into various school subjects. During the communist period, the teaching of astronomy was restricted, being limited to the upper grades or being eliminated from the curriculum altogether. Recently, there have been some initiatives to reintroduce astronomy as a distinct subject of study, reflecting the desire to rekindle students’ interest in this field. This article emphasizes the need for the introduction of an integrated astronomy course in schools and the need for adequate resources, as well as the importance of astronomy in developing students' critical thinking, curiosity and interest in science

Feminist Digital Humanities and the Harriet Rosenstein Sylvia Plath Archive

The paper focuses on reinterpreting the Harriet Rosenstein archive, containing a vast amount of previously unavailable materials concerning Sylvia Plath, as a source of feminist literary recovery. It also investigates the digitization of this archive in the larger context of a digital turn in Plath studies, and a potential connection with feminist digital humanities. The archive contains a vast number of Sylvia Plath-related documents that have been recently opened to the public at Emory University after almost five decades. Rosenstein was a young researcher with feminist critical interests at the time she documented a projected Plath biography, and her work bears the mark of her ideological options and of a distinct intention to reshape the cultural discourse around Plath’s status as a feminist icon. My aim is to investigate the feminist itinerary Rosenstein created in her archive in order to reveal Plath’s essential role as a female writer articulating innovative perspectives on women’s issues, mythologies and fundamental themes.

From silicon shield to carbon lock‐in? The environmental footprint of electronic components manufacturing in Taiwan (2015–2020)

AbstractTaiwan plans to rapidly increase its industrial production capacity of electronic components while concurrently setting policies for its ecological transition. Given that the island is responsible for the manufacturing of a significant part of worldwide electronics components (including the most advanced CMOS technology nodes), the sustainability of the Taiwanese electronics industry is of critical interest. In this paper, we survey the environmental footprint of 16 Taiwanese electronic components manufacturers (ECMs) using corporate sustainability responsibility reports. Based on data from 2015 to 2020, we find out that the sample of ECMs in this study increased its greenhouse gas emissions by 7.5% per year, its final energy and electricity consumption by 8.8% and 8.9%, and its water usage by 6.1%. We show that the volume of manufactured electronic components and the environmental footprint compiled in this study are strongly correlated, which suggests that relative efficiency gains are not sufficient to curb the overall environmental footprint of ECMs on the island. Given the critical nature of the electronics industry for Taiwan's geopolitics and economics, the observed increase of energy consumption, and the slow renewable energy roll‐out, Taiwan could face a carbon lock‐in situation which will most likely prevent the achievement of carbon reduction goals and sustainability policies on the island.

Spatially Resolved Dielectric Loss at the Si/SiO_{2} Interface.

The Si/SiO_{2} interface is populated by isolated trap states that modify its electronic properties. These traps are of critical interest for the development of semiconductor-based quantum sensors and computers, as well as nanoelectronic devices. Here, we study the electric susceptibility of the Si/SiO_{2} interface with nm spatial resolution using frequency-modulated atomic force microscopy. The sample measured here is a patterned dopant delta layer buried 2nm beneath the silicon native oxide interface. We show that charge organization timescales of the Si/SiO_{2} interface range from 1-150ns, and increase significantly around interfacial traps. We conclude that under time-varying gate biases, dielectric loss in metal-insulator-semiconductor capacitor devices is in the frequency range of MHz to sub-MHz, and is highly spatially heterogeneous over nm length scales.

The interdependence between the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem and Entrepreneurial Culture - An analysis with sustainable and traditional entrepreneurs

The Cultural dimension remains the most puzzling element within the dynamics of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems (EE). Because cultural features have pervasive effects on the behavior of individuals and organizations, assessing the interplay between Culture and other components of EE becomes matter of critical interest. This is particularly relevant vis-à-vis the quest for sustainable transitions in these productive structures. Following this background, this research aims to identify the main elements of the entrepreneurial ecosystem that influence entrepreneurial culture when comparing ‘traditional’ and sustainable entrepreneurs. We model these associations with the Grey Incidence Analysis (GIA) method. Data collection was carried out in 2023 with a sample of 245 projects approved in the Innovative Research in Small Businesses (PIPE) program in Brazil. Findings indicate that sustainable entrepreneurs exhibit distinct patterns in the entrepreneurial ecosystem configurations conducive to fostering a robust entrepreneurial culture. Notably, the elements of the ecosystem exerting the most pronounced influence are intricately tied to governmental support. These elements primarily affect the sense of self-sufficiency, autonomy, personal initiative, and the propensity to take risks. This research expands the notion of culture within the entrepreneurial ecosystem and presents insights into required elements to promote sustainable transitions in EE. Accordingly, our findings offer novel insights for EE policy concerning UN Sustainable Development Goals, thereby providing practical guidance for policymakers and professionals in the field.

The Power of the Eye and Point of View in Oliver Twist

Abstract: This article seeks to revise the orthodox opinćions about Dickens as a "superficial" novelist who is unable to delve into the souls of his characters and depict their interiority. Since the introspective elements in Dickens are worthy of more attention than they have received, I critically dissect two passages in which Dickens dramatizes the mental operations of two criminals (Sikes and Fagin) at a moment of crisis in Oliver Twist . As I argue, the vigour and intensity of the novelist's portrayal of these characters' inwardness and mental activity draw heavily on eye imagery, its symbolic implications, and metaphors of seeing, which focuses all textual eyes together with the reader's eyes on the two malefactors. The internal focalizations of Sikes and Fagin deserve a particular critical interest because of their significant impact on the cultural afterlives of the novel, which this essay also discusses.

Wynter's Time

Abstract: Taking the resurgence of critical interest in Sylvia Wynter within contemporary Black cultural theory as its starting point, this essay has two aims: to examine more closely how Wynter has been received recently within Black studies, and to then historicize that critical reception by thinking about how it relates to earlier work (the 1960s–1980s) when Wynter was beginning to develop her own protocols for a critical decolonial and aesthetic theory. Wynter's work on temporality, the cognitive subject, and theories of reading will be the main concern. Although the essay's primary archive is the long arc of Wynter's work and how those interventions have affected some recent turns within Black cultural theory, the piece will also aim to examine more closely the effects of Wynter's interventions through reviewing a number of recent monographs within the theoretical humanities (David Marriott's Whither Fanon?: Studies in the Blackness of Being , Tavia Nyong'o's Afro-Fabulations: The Queer Drama of Black Life , Catherine Malabou's Before Tomorrow: Epigenesis and Rationality , and Katherine McKittrick's Dear Science: and other Stories ) that, when read together, help to describe more clearly the contemporary epistemic atmosphere within which so many new and pathfinding readings of Wynter have been taking place.

The “Finance‐Extraction‐Transitions Nexus”: Geographies of the Green Transition in the 21st Century

AbstractThe hegemonic understanding of the green transition will require a massive surge in mineral extraction. We contend that this entails wider, radical shifts in 21st century financialised capitalism. While there has been increasing critical interest in the role of finance capital in development, the links between finance, extraction, and the green transition have been largely overlooked. We fill this gap by arguing that the green transition, understood as a transformation of global capitalism, is marked by new rounds of appropriation, exploitation, and extraction, (re)producing dependencies for resource‐rich Global South countries. These emergent geographies of the green transition are best evaluated through what we call the “finance‐extraction‐transitions nexus”. The nexus highlights the interplay between finance capital, mineral extraction, and the material, socio‐economic, and environmental implications of the green transition. This provides new ways to theoretically, conceptually, and methodologically engage with resource extraction and the green transition in the age of financialised capitalism.

Little girl/Hummingbird/Homme-plante: women and poetics in Aimé Césaire’s Discourse on Colonialism and the essays of Suzanne Césaire

ABSTRACT Since its publication in 1950, Aimé Césaire's Discourse on Colonialism has remained influential for its incisive reframing of the European “civilizing mission.” Nevertheless, feminist interventions have problematized the masculine nationalist project upon which both the essay and the wider Négritude movement rest. The recent surge of critical interest in Suzanne Césaire demonstrates a desire to—recuperate-as Kara Rabbitt phrases—it-the “missing mother” of Martinican cultural genealogy. In this paper, I will reckon with the gender gap separating the two Césaires, thinking through poetics as a gendered political epistemology in their essays. Beginning with Aimé Césaire and Discourse on Colonialism, I focus on his central rhetorical device of formal repetition, specifically anaphora, and draw on the work of Brent Hayes Edwards to argue that the anaphoric line is entrenched in a masculinist narrative of freedom, rhetorically foreclosing on gender consciousness. From there, I undertake a close and comparative reading of selections from Suzanne Césaire's oeuvre against Discourse, noting divergences in their varying figurations of colonized and racialized women. Considering new scholarship on Suzanne Césaire's influence and ecopoetics, including the work of Anny-Dominique Curtius and Lauren Nelson, I propose her posthuman ecopoetics as a source of gendered epistemology.