Synesthesia vs. crossmodal illusions

We can discern two opposing viewpoints regarding synesthesia. According to the first, it is an oddity, an outlier, or a disordered condition. According to the second, synesthesia is pervasive, driving creativity, metaphor, or language itself. Which is it? Ultimately, I favor the first perspective, according to which cross-sensory synesthesia is an outlying condition. But the second perspective is not wholly misguided. My discussion has three lessons. First, synesthesia is just one of a variety of effects in which one sense modality causally impacts and reshapes experience associated with another. These effects are utterly common. However, due to their unfamiliarity, and to their conflict with a widespread conception of the role of the senses in perception and perceptual experience, until recently they have been surprising. Second, synesthesia nevertheless must be distinguished from other inter-modal effects that lead to misperception, such as crossmodal illusions. Third, synesthesia also may be distinguished from the potentially much broader class of synesthetic effects, which could be common across the population and within individuals

‘My printer must, haue somwhat to his share’: Isabella Whitney, Richard Jones, and crafting books

Given Isabella Whitney’s reputation as the first English professional woman writer, her books are fertile ground for the recent material turn in the study of early modern women’s writing. Women’s engagement in book production meant that their texts were mediated through the work of booksellers, printers, and other agents in the print trade. We need to remember that writers make texts, but books are made by publishers and printers. Whitney’s own working relationship with her printer-publisher, Richard Jones, is well-known. Yet, the precise nature of Jones’s role in the production of Whitney’s books and her fashioning as an “Auctor” remains shadowy, largely because questions of agency have not been explored through the technologies of book production. To understand the ways in which Whitney’s texts were mediated through print, and her participation in this process, this essay will focus on how her books of poetry were made, starting with the role of her printer-publisher, Richard Jones

Dispersion-induced dynamics of coupled modes in a semiconductor laser with saturable absorption

We present an experimental and theoretical study of modal nonlinear dynamics in a specially designed dual-mode semiconductor Fabry-Perot laser with a saturable absorber. At zero bias applied to the absorber section, we have found that with increasing device current, single mode self-pulsations evolve into a complex dynamical state where the total intensity experiences regular bursts of pulsations on a constant background. Spectrally resolved measurements reveal that in this state the individual modes of the device can follow highly symmetric but oppositely directed spiralling orbits. Using a generalization of the rate equation description of a semiconductor laser with saturable absorption to the multimode case, we show that these orbits appear as a consequence of the interplay between the material dispersion in the gain and absorber sections of the laser. Our results provide insights into the factors that determine the stability of multimode states in these systems, and they can inform the development of semiconductor mode-locked lasers with tailored spectra.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figure

Kinks, extra dimensions, and gravitational waves

We investigate in detail the gravitational wave signal from kinks on cosmic (super)strings, including the kinematical effects from the internal extra dimensions. We find that the signal is suppressed, however, the effect is less significant that that for cusps. Combined with the greater incidence of kinks on (super)strings, it is likely that the kink signal offers the better chance for detection of cosmic (super)strings.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figure

A New Direction for the Payment of Milk: Technological and Seasonality Considerations in Multiple Component Milk Pricing of Milk (Liquid and Manufacturing) for a Diversifying Dairy Industry

End of project reportThe main objectives of this study were to compare a Multiple Component Pricing system with the current milk pricing practice in Ireland and to estimate the marginal values of the three main milk components (fat, protein and lactose) in the context of the Irish milk processing industry. A representative linear programming model of an average Irish milk processor was developed in order to determine the marginal values of the milk components and to compare the value of milk under the Multiple Component Pricing system with the value under the current milk pricing practice. This study also examined the effect of product mix, milk supply and milk composition on the marginal value of the milk components