ICE CRYSTAL DYNAMICS IN THE NANOCOMPOSITE NETWORKS

Water is abundant in every day's life and critically useful in many biological systems and in water-based mechanical devices. Freeze-thaw process is one of the inevitable dynamics especially for the materials working at sub-zero conditions where ice crystal changes the physical property of the whole crystal-embedded composite systems. However, still many phenomena have not been explained in terms of crystal control methodology in conjunction with mechanical properties. In this study, ice crystal dynamics occurring in network systems has been discussed. Small size of network structure contributes to crystal growth inhibition especially time-dependent recrystallization. This could be explained by nano-scale confinement effect at the initial nucleation/growth stage, controlling size and shape of ice crystallites. The physical property of crystal embedded-nanocomposite is dominated by ice crystal behaviors over the network. This includes freezing point depression, frequency-dependent and temperature-dependent storage modulus changes and cooling rate- dependent dynamics. This study sheds light on ice crystal control methodology which would be useful in various materials and machines working under freeze-thaw dynamics.

Playing Whiteness in Crisis in The Last of Us and Tomb Raider

This paper examines the white normative figure under duress, through videogames that present a crisis in American narratives of progress: The Last of Us (Naughty Dog, 2013), set in a melancholic post-apocalyptic U.S.; and Tomb Raider (Crystal Dynamics, 2013), a reboot of the now-classic Lara Croft narrative that recasts the heroine as desperate and far from invincible. Using key concepts from critical whiteness studies, popular panics around the demographic shifts in the U.S. away from a white majority, and Richard Dyer’s theorizations, I show how “making whiteness strange” can decouple it from the normative, and rescue it from unattainable ideals and self-annihilating tendencies. Running the gauntlet between representing universal humanity and traumatized victimhood, whiteness in games takes a beating within a fraught post-9/11 and post-Obama moment of national transition. Through critical analysis of identity politics around whiteness in video games, larger cultural stakes are revealed.

Regularizations of time-crystal dynamics

We demonstrate that nonconvex Lagrangians, as contemplated in the theory of time crystals, can arise in the effective description of conventional, physically realizable systems. Such embeddings resolve dynamical singularities which arise in the reduced description. Microstructure featuring intervals of fixed velocity interrupted by quick resets—“Sisyphus dynamics”—is a generic consequence. In quantum mechanics, this microstructure can be blurred, leaving entirely regular behavior.

Shear flow dynamics in the Beris-Edwards model of nematic liquid crystals

We consider the Beris-Edwards model describing nematic liquid crystal dynamics and restrict it to a shear flow and spatially homogeneous situation. We analyse the dynamics focusing on the effect of the flow. We show that in the co-rotational case one has gradient dynamics, up to a periodic eigenframe rotation, while in the non-co-rotational case we identify the short- and long-time regimes of the dynamics. We express these in terms of the physical variables and compare with the predictions of other models of liquid crystal dynamics.