text:
Review – "alt.punk" by Lavinia Ludlow
By Daimion | May 13, 2011 | Comments 0 Comment
I waited a good while to write this review after I finished "alt.punk". I needed time to process it, to tuck it away and let my subconscious work on it for a while. It was a tough call to make – my inclination is to dive straight in to a review while the experience of reading the book is still fresh in my mind. I take notes as I read; I jot down ideas for the review and highlight passages I want to revisit; things that resonated with me. When I first finished "alt.punk", I crafted the following to sum up my thoughts:
"The story didn't so much end as it simply bled out, lying in a pool of it's own vomit on the cheap linoleum bathroom floor of a mobile home."
I still like the visceral imagery of that critique – but as I contemplated the book more, I realized it would have been a gross disservice to the story to leave that as my final word. In many ways, I found myself mirroring the comfortable acceptance of first impressions that plagued a few of the characters in the book. So, I took a step back and gave the tale time to marinate.
"alt.punk" is a story of extremes. Hazel is a hypochondriac with severe OCD, trapped in a life she realizes she does not want. Constantly berated for her weight by a family built from every middle-class stereotype imaginable, she finds herself working at Safeway and in a relationship with a man she really doesn't like. It's a dead-end existence that's wasted away the last ten years of her life.
Into that powder keg of burgeoning self-awareness comes Otis – lead singer of a punk band and human car wreck. He has the emotional intelligence of a 7 year-old, the personal hygiene of a homeless person, and the drug habits of, well, the lead singer of a punk band. He is the complete antithesis of the sanitary, safe, OCD world Hazel inhabits. Once they meet, it's clear to Hazel that he is the gateway to change she so desperately seeks.
What follows is an exploration of Hazel's relationship with Otis and her spiraling quest to break out of the chains of her former life. It's a raw, festering, no holds barred look at the dysfunctional world Otis creates around himself and draws Hazel in to. It was a tough read. I would have run out of steam long before the end of the story had Ludlow not written with such an engaging and honest voice. She is able to construct a brutishly elegant turn of phrase when she wants – and that kept me coming back for more.
Still, the story almost lost me. The detritus of Otis and Hazel's relationship is so graphically and bluntly put on display, it's easy to be overwhelmed by it all. Have you ever had a friend convince you to try something, only to find yourself in the emergency room bleeding later? You get home, give it a few days and then develop an impressive scab on your forearm (or leg, or whatever you injured in your drunken quest for immortality). Of course, you decide to pick at the scab. It hurts, it bleeds – but you just can't help yourself. Two days later, it's scabbed over again – and you starting picking at it again – searching for that first hint of bright, pink, freshly formed skin underneath the crust. That, my friends, was my experience getting to the end of "alt.punk".
Having finished the book, I was ready to move on. What I forgot was – you do eventually find that fresh pink skin under the scab. Had I written my review immediately, I would have missed it. Only after I thought about the story for a while, went back and reread parts of it, did I find that glimmer of fresh skin I was looking for. At the very end of the story, Hazel says:
"According to my doctor, I have a life expectancy of eighty-eight. I don't know how I feel about so many more years. I know that it isn't punk to entertain old age (hell, it isn't punk to make it past twenty-seven) but there has to be more out there than these extreme ends of the spectrum, bohemian and bourgeois, the only two lifestyles that I've know."
It's been said the political spectrum is a circle, not a straight line. You go far enough to the left and you end up on the right. I think the social spectrum can be much the same. For all their differences, both the bohemian and the bourgeois worlds Hazel experienced had many similarities. Both were unforgiving, both looked down on outsiders, and both left her unfulfilled. What she learned from them was this – the fringes may be exciting for a while, but the real living is somewhere in the middle.
There is no question that Lavinia Ludlow is a talented author and I'm anxious to see what she decides to write next. As I said earlier, the sheer enjoyment I got from reading her prose sustained me through the book. She has a great sense of voice and expertly balances both humor and humanity in her characters. At one point in the book, Hazel is working to publish a novel and gets some advice from her editor:
"You don't have to use a load of profanity to make dialogue pop off the page." I smile when I realize he's talking about the manuscript. "Just like you don't have to rely on graphic sex to make the interaction between two people darkly intimate." He pauses to wait out a foghorn. "And you don't have to rely solely on sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll to make your characters anarchic. It's all excess, and I think you're enough of a writer without them."
I could not have put it better myself and you have to wonder if Ludlow was talking to Hazel, or subconsciously to herself. Either way, it's great advice and I hope she takes it to heart. She's has too much potential to spend her time on the scab and not on the skin.
My favorite words from "alt.punk"
"Just remember," she says, "Your kids will resent you for bringing them in to a dysfunctional world." There are so many ways I could respond to a declaration like that.
When I stopped mulling over everything I'm not, I naturally became someone I could stand to be, but that's easy on the road because nothing is real."
Put two of the most self-centered and volatile people in the same room and they won't destroy each other, they'll destroy themselves.
*A copy of this book was provided to thewordzombie.com by the author for the purpose of this review
My interview with Lavinia Ludow, author of…
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text:
Best new TV series to get excited about in 2019
From the last season of Game Of Thrones to a Shipwrecked reboot!
By Anna Lewis
2019 is looking like an INCREDIBLE year for new and returning TV shows. From Game Of Thrones season 8 to a Shipwrecked - here are all the shows you can start getting riled up for next year.
Love Island 2019 - Best new TV series 2019
Love Island will be back in 2019, because, well how could it not be. Why can't it be July already. Wahhhhhhhhhhh.
Keep an eye out on ITV2 for Love Island in July 2019.
Stranger Things, season 3 - Best new TV series 2019
Season 3 of Netflix's massively popular original series, Stranger Things, is definitely happening. Just not until 2019 sadly.
Stranger Things season 3 is due for release on 4th July on Netflix.
Line Of Duty, season 5 - Best new TV series 2019
In March this year, the official Line Of Duty Twitter account tweeted that filming for the fifth series will start later this year, and a teaser trailer aired in September. It looks GOOD.
The fifth series of Line Of Duty is due for release on BBC in April 2019.
Game Of Thrones, season 8 - Best new TV series 2019
Alas, we've known for a while that we'd have to wait until 2019 for the final EVER season of Game Of Thrones. What the hell are we going to talk to strangers about once this is over?
Game Of Thrones season 8 is due for release on Sky Atlantic 14th April 2019.
Good Omens - Best new TV series 2019
David Tennant and Michael Sheen star as a demon and and angel who are forced to team up to save civilisation from Armageddon. Sounds pretty serious, right?
Good Omens is due for release on Amazon Prime 31st May.
You, season 2 - Best new TV series 2019
You, starring Penn Badgley, has been one of Netflix's biggest hits of late, and the great news is there's a second season in the works.
Keep an eye on Netflix in 2019 for season 2 of You.
Mindhunter, season 2 - Best new TV series 2019
Mindhunter is set in the 70s, and follows FBI agent Holden Ford (based on real-life John E. Douglas) and his buddy Bill Tench as they travel around America interviewing some of the most depraved serial killers of the time in an attempt to understand why killers do what they do. And seeing as they still have a whole host of killers to interview, season 2 promises to be just as good as season 1.
Keep an eye out on Netflix in 2019 for season 2 of Mindhunter.
Mammoth Screen
Poldark, series 5 - Best new TV series 2019
Hooray! Ross Poldark will be back for a fifth series of the BBC TV show. Fingers crossed there'll be plenty more scything this year...
Keep an eye out on BBC for the fifth series of Poldark.
Big Little Lies, season 2 - Best new TV series 2019
The good news is, we're getting more Big little Lies HOORAY! The bad news is, it's unlikely to be with us until next year. BOOOOOO!
Keep an eye out on Sky Atlantic in 2019 for Big Little Lies season 2.
The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, season 2 - Best new TV series 2019
The first season of The Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina went down so well that not only has Netflix commissioned a second season, but there's also a third and fourth been confirmed. We're guessing we'll have to wait for 2020 for season 3, mind you...
The second season of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is due for release on Netflix on 5th April 2019.
Sid Gentle Films/Nick BriggsBBC
Killing Eve, series 2 - Best new TV series 2019
Villanelle will be back in 2019 to taunt us all in the second series of the BBC's hugely successful Killing Eve. So watch your back...
Keep an eye out on BBC for the second series of Killing Eve in 2019.
Taboo, season 2 - Best new TV series 2019
Sadly, for all us Tom Hardy fans, production hasn't even started on Taboo's second series yet, with creator Steven Knight saying in May 2017 that they expected to start shooting in early 2018. So we're guessing we won't get to watch it until early 2019. Soz.
Keep an eye on BBC One in 2019 for Taboo season 2.
Rick And Morty, season 4 - Best new TV series 2019
At the moment, Adult Swim hasn't actually renewed Rick And Morty for a fourth season. But co-creator Dan Harmon has said that he was about to start working on it when season 3 was coming to an end, so it looks like it's happening whether Adult Swim like it or not. Realistically, we won't get the fourth season until late 2019.
Keep an eye on Adult Swim in 2019 for Rick And Morty season 4.
Beverly Hills 90210 reboot - Best new TV series 2019
Yes, yes - we know there was a new version of Beverly Hills 90210 in 2008, but this upcoming reboot will feature the original cast from the 1990 series. How cool is that?
Keep an eye out for the Beverly Hills 90210 reboot in 2019.
Peaky Blinders, season 5 - Best new TV series 2019
Tommy and the rest of the Peaky Blinders will return to our TV screens in 2019. And we'll be counting down the days
Keep an eye out on BBC One in 2019 for Peaky Blinders season 5.
The Crown, season 3 - Best new TV series 2019
Seeing as filming has only just started for the third season of The Crown, we can't expect to watch it until next year sadly.
Keep an eye out on Netflix in 2019 for The Crown season 3.
Fargo, season 4 - Best new TV series 2019
After originally being hesitant about there being a season 4 of Fargo, FX's CEO John Landgraft has now confirmed the news that Ewan McGregor's series will indeed return. but not for a while.
Keep an eye out on FX in 2019 for Fargo season 4.
RuPaul's Drag Race UK - Best new TV series 2019
All our prayers have been answered as a UK version of RuPaul's Drag Race is coming to our TV screen in 2019. Halleloo!
Keep an eye out for RuPaul's Drag Race UK on BBC Three in 2019.
Homeland, season 8 - Best new TV series 2019
Claire Danes recently confirmed that we will be getting another season of Homeland. But, alas, season 8 will be the last.
Keep an eye out on Showtime in 2019 for Homeland season 8.
Veep, season 7 - Best new TV series 2019
Sadly, production on the final season of Veep had to be halted so Julia Louis-Dreyfus could undergo chemotherapy for breast cancer. But her Veep co-star Matt Walsh told EW that they're expecting to start filming in August for the final season to air in 2019.
"We've seen [Julia], she's done some table reads, she's doing well, she's finished her last chemo, she's in recuperation. Her prospectives have remained excellent throughout. She's very well loved; she's a tremendous person," he explained.
Keep an eye on HBO for the seventh season of Veep.
Liar, season 2 - Best new TV series 2019
Annoyingly, we won't find out who killed Andrew until 2019 - maybe even not until the end of 2019. Eurgh. ITV confirmed that a second series of Liar won't go into production until next January, but at least both Joanne Froggatt and Ioan Gruffudd are definitely returning.
Keep an eye on ITV for the second series of Liar.
All the cutest couples at the Grammy Awards
Anna Lewis Entertainment Editor Anna is Cosmopolitan UK's Entertainment Editor, and covers all celebrity, TV, film, and music news.
Emily Ratajkowski's underboob is not here to play
Kylie's taking over Instagram with her bikini pics
The Love Island moment receiving Ofcom complaints
Love Island's Amy Hart has landed a TV role
Love Island's Ovie put Michael in his place
The date of Love Island 2019 final
Sofia Richie's Photoshop clapback Is confusing
Love Island fans were angry for Amber over Michael
The surprising item you can't take in hand luggage
Eurostar's route to the French Alps
The first trailer for Channel 4's The Bisexual
The best new TV shows to look forward to in autumn
The best new movies to get excited about in 2019
Netflix Original TV to get excited about in 2017
TV shows to watch in 2013
Exciting TV thrillers to watch in 2019

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Our office works closely with other areas on campus to connect you to programs and people that help you succeed. We believe that the StFX community can be a sustainable, healthy, safe and vibrant place for students to live and learn and we provide connections to people and opportunities to make that vision possible.
We strive to provide a positive space for all students to feel welcome and included in the wider StFX and Antigonish community. Academic success should always be your number one priority, a close second should be getting involved in the community around you.
There is no one right experience; your experience will be the right one for you, no matter what others around you are experiencing. Some students have academic challenges, others social, and some a combination of both. Our office is here to help you be successful and that may include referring you to an academic advisor, the counseling centre, encouraging you to get involved in a sport or activity or simply making you aware of ways in which your community can support you.
Our staff are devoted to your success and are always willing to help, come by and see us.
Interested in getting involved, developing your leadership skills?
Looking for resources that can help you be successful both in and out of the classroom?


The Data Validation dialog allows you to limit or control what a user enters into a cell. There are two keyboard shortcuts to open it.I use Alt A V V pressed in sequence and not held down.
This uses the current Ribbon interface to activate the dialog. As you press the keys in sequence you will see letters and numbers display on the Ribbon showing the selections possible.
Excel remembers older version keyboard shortcuts.
Back in Excel 2003 the shortcut combination was Alt D L pressed in sequence – this was in the old menu drop down interface.
Both shortcuts work – choose the one you like.
I prefer Alt A V V because it is easier to do one handed – the keys are close together. Even though it has an extra keystroke the last key is the same, so not much difference in speed.


text:
Sep 5, 2017 News Hour Correspondent -
Suu Kyi under pressure as almost 125,000 Rohingya flee violence
Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has come under pressure from countries with large Muslim populations including Bangladesh, Indonesia and Pakistan to halt violence against Rohingya Muslims after nearly 125,000 of them fled to Bangladesh.
Reuters reporters saw hundreds of exhausted Rohingyas arriving on boats near the village of Shamlapur in Bangladesh near the Myanmar border. The village, facing the Bay of Bengal, appears to have become the newest receiving point for the refugees after authorities cracked down on human traffickers in a different part of the Teknaf peninsula.
Indonesian foreign minister Retno Marsudi was due in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, on Tuesday after meeting the Nobel peace laureate and army chief Min Aung Hlaing to urge that Myanmar halt the bloodshed.
"The security authorities need to immediately stop all forms of violence there and provide humanitarian assistance and development aid for the short and long term," Retno said after her meetings in the Myanmar capital.
The latest violence in Myanmar's northwestern Rakhine state began on Aug. 25, when Rohingya insurgents attacked dozens of police posts and an army base. The ensuing clashes and a military counter-offensive have killed at least 400 people and triggered the exodus of villagers to Bangladesh.
The treatment of Buddhist-majority Myanmar's roughly 1.1 million Muslim Rohingya is the biggest challenge facing Suu Kyi, who has been accused by Western critics of not speaking out for the minority that has long complained of persecution.
Myanmar says its security forces are fighting a legitimate campaign against "terrorists" responsible for a string of attacks on police posts and the army since last October.
Myanmar officials blamed Rohingya militants for the burning of homes and civilian deaths but rights monitors and Rohingya fleeing to neighboring Bangladesh say the Myanmar army is trying to force them out with a campaign of arson and killings.
"Indonesia is taking the lead, and ultimately there is a possibility of ASEAN countries joining in," H.T. Imam, a political adviser to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, told Reuters.
He was referring to the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations that groups both Myanmar and Indonesia.
"If we can keep the pressure on Myanmar from ASEAN, from India as well, that will be good."
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi begins a visit to Myanmar later on Tuesday, during which he will meet top officials, including Suu Kyi.
"Modi is going there and our foreign secretary has already briefed the foreign secretary of India on this," said Imam. "If the international conscience is awakened that would put pressure on Myanmar."
Turkey called the violence against the Rohingya "genocide" and offered Bangladesh help with the refugee influx. Pakistan, home to a large Rohingya community, has expressed "deep anguish" and urged the world body, the Organization of Islamic Countries, to act.
NewsPoliticsRohingya


When faced with a conflict between animal rights and Muslims, what's a poor liberal to do?
A Paris prosecutor yesterday called for French film legend Brigitte Bardot to receive a two-month suspended prison sentence and a £12,000 fine for inciting racial hatred in a letter.
In December 2006, Miss Bardot, 73, now an animal rights activist, wrote to President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, then the interior minister, criticising the Muslim practice of slaughtering sheep without first stunning them.
Of course, this is not really a case of animal rights, so much as human rights (i.e., free speech and petitioning the government). Perhaps the animals would have done better.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 at 1:17 am and is filed under Political.	You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.


Christie Rowland Fehr died in Southern Pines, NC on April 9, 2019 at the age of 73.
Christie was better known as Kitty, and seemingly almost everyone knew Kitty Fehr.
Her absence will leave a huge gap in many people's lives. She was born in Lumberton, NC; grew up in Gainesville, Florida; and earned a bachelor's degree at the University of Florida and a master's degree from the University of Tennessee.
Kitty was a consummate teacher who loved teaching. Her students adored her. She taught business education for 17 years in high school at Hendersonville, before moving to Raleigh to help care for her aging parents.
Kitty had a wonderful sense of humor, and was a healer. Later in life, Kitty mastered Tai Chi and Reiki, becoming a Reiki Master. And after fully retiring to Belle Meade in Southern Pines, Kitty established Tai Chi classes at the Moore County Senior Enhancement Center that would soon draw long waiting lists for enrollment. She worked without pay. And she would be publicly recognized as the leading volunteer for Moore County.
Christie Rowland Fehr is survived by her brother, Dr. Lenton Rowland, of Gainesville, Florida.
Inurnment will be at 11:00 AM, Thursday, April 18,2019 at Pleasant Grove Baptist Church Cemetery, 10005 Lake Wheeler Road, Fuquay Varina, NC 27526. At Kitty's request there will be no service, but a few words will be spoken by a friend, and other friends of Kitty Fehr are invited to attend.
Powell Funeral Home is serving the Fehr family.


Since July of 2013 I have bee suffering from a plethora of symptoms stemming from stopping (cold turkey) the use of topical steroid creams and ointments prescribed by Dermatologist after Dermatologist throughout the years. Now realizing that my true eczema most likely burnt out during my teenage years (ie, the beautiful brown skin I had) and how when I got a little rash in my early 20's I should have just supplemented or just put some shea butter on it and let it burn out again, it was now high time I figure out a way to minimize my withdrawal symptoms.
I honestly thought that I would have to just continue bearing the brunt of these horrible symptoms until I was all healed up. Last month I even got a NEW symptom! NERVE PAIN w/prickly needle-like feelings which made my itchiness even worse. I was like, enough is enough! It's bad enough that I now look like a shriveled up gremlin but did I have to continue with this outrageous suffering on top of everything else? I mean COME ON!
Now while I have not been tested yet to see if I might have the MTHFR gene mutation I most certainly have started taking the supplements she has recommended to help minimize my symptoms and guess what?! They are working!! It took a little over a week for it all to kick in BUT THEY ARE WORKING!!!


Today should have been mentally tough but it wasn't. That's a good thing. The forecast was for rain and when we walked out the door, it was obvious that the forecast was going to be correct. The dark, heavy clouds were low and the air was as wet as it could be without pouring down. We left too early for the hotel breakfast but we found much better value down the street in a patisserie anyway. After beignets, coffee and juice, we were out the door and walking by 8:00am.
A quick section down Main Street in Villefranche put us back on the Camino trail and we were soon out of the village, walking past a small new housing development that would easily win any competition for ugliness. Back to the farmer's fields, we kept looking at the sky for the certain downpour.
There was a steep but short 70m climb into the small round mound called Montgaillard-Lauragais. I liked the layout of the town and the dog who greeted our entry. The small pup seemed to have rather long fur all over and a small head. The result was that we couldn't tell whether it was looking at us or his owner when we first saw him. We had to wait to see which end barked. Regarding the geography, the village on the hill has its church, St. Étienne's at the center of the summit. There are two concentric rings around the church where all the residents live. From above, it looks like a tiny city with two ring roads that needed to be built to accommodate the growing city – even though the population never really broke 100 here.
Some further farm tracks took us to the edge of Villenouvelle but bypassing it to a small creek crossing. This was the moment it decided to really start raining. We were mostly prepared but we just had to put on our jackets over us and our gear. We use and love the old Altus Atmospheric Light model but the one drawback of it is that it is so light, it could tear easily with sharp objects like thorns. Now, of course, we were just a few meters short of entering the only forest trail of the day. I don't think anyone has used this particular trail in years as it was so overgrown with thorn and other bushes. It was a short 500m section but it was slow going, whacking a clearance wide enough for us to pass safely through without shredding our coats.
The rain was more a typical London day-long variety, compared to the fierce but brief tropical rain storms of Singapore. We were in no danger of drowning but we could be tortured to death by the old Chinese water torture of repeated and never ending drips on our heads.
We stopped in a open barn to check the GPS without getting the phone wet and the owner saw us. The happy older man asked us if we were walking the the Chemin to Compostela and we said yes even though we are stopping far short of Santiago. He then had a long conversation with us in French about the walk and where we are from but when we explained we were walking to Donneville he seemed confused that we weren't going all the way to Toulouse today. I said that we would only be able to walk to Toulouse tomorrow and he was shocked. "You are going to WALK to Toulouse – not take the train?!?" I laughed and said yes, we have walked every step from Montpellier and he gave the most French reply possible, "Ooh la la" with a wag of the hand.
We took a slightly shorter alternative route for the last bit into the town of Baziége, in order to stay on roads rather than soggy, muddy trails. That gave us the chance to walk the entire length of their Main Street to look for food, a drink and a dry, warm rest. We were just about to walk into a small patisserie when Melanie spotted a sports bar further down the road. This was perfect as it allowed us the chance to take our raincoats off outside under cover and shake them drier before going in. Also, no one really cares when two muddy, drenched walkers enter a sports bar. We were able to get a sandwich and soft drink before hurrying back to the patisserie for…. oops, it closed while we were in the bar. I was devastated but Melanie picked me up off the ground, stopped my from crying and kicking the the door and we were soon walking again.
After leaving Baziége, we crossed the A61 highway and were soon, finally walking along the famous Canal-du-Midi. I remember hearing about this canal in grade school history class so it was cool to see. I believe that the smaller canal we walked along the past few days just fed water into this one. We have decided to walk along the bigger canal all the way into Toulouse tomorrow. The main reason for this is because the accommodation in Donneville, next to the canal, provided the best stopping point half way between Villefranche and Toulouse.
We are now drying our clothes and bodies in the charmless Motel Restaurant l'Enclos. It has a high class, excellent restaurant with eight ugly cabins in the back. The rooms are sufficient but as motel-like as any motel in the US. The highly regarded restaurant is unfortunately closed on Sunday evenings – our timing is perfect as always. We asked about nearby places to eat and they could think of no solution within a kilometer. We asked if we could just eat a very early "dinner" at 2:30pm and they looked our soggy, muddy, drenched, smelly bodies up and down before taking pity on us. They showed us into the place where we saw everyone else in suits, dresses and their Sunday bests. Thankfully, for everyone's sake, they hid us in a very secluded section that was mostly out of sight.
That's it for today. Sorry for the few photos but the phone needed to stay dry.
Edited to add, its 7:30pm and I just went up to the reception to see why the wi-fi isn't working. The building is locked up tight. There isn't a soul around who can assist me. Furthermore, I had a look around the neighborhood as the rain stopped. There is a pizza parlor open directly across the street. Those jerks just wanted us to eat at their restaurant when they said thee was no food within a kilometer. Someone's getting a zero rating on Facebook. For anyone following us, avoid this place. There is a B&B a couple of hundred meters south of here called Pause Canal.


This article discusses Sufism's engagement with scholastic theology and the development of theological doctrines that are distinctive to particular traditions within Sufism. In respect to the former, attention is paid to how Sufi texts addressed, explicitly and implicitly, major questions such as the nature of God, the soul, cosmology, theodicy, prophecy, soteriology, and eschatology. Issues of special importance to Sufi worldviews, such as walāya/wilāya ('friendship with God') and miracles are also covered. In regards to distinctive Sufi doctrines, the article examines various understandings of the states and stations of the Sufi path (ṭarīqa) as well as notions of experiential knowledge (maʿrifa), divine union and encounters, oneness of being (waḥdat al-wujūd), and love (maḥabba, ʿishq). Also addressed are the mystical refigurations of notable religious personalities such as the Prophet Muhammad and Iblīs. The article closes with a brief look at socially deviant renunciant movements that develop in response to the institutionalization of Sufism.
Martin Nguyen is Associate Professor of Islamic Religious Traditions in the Religious Studies Department at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut.


text:
Q: define schema fro array of struct I have a dataframe whose printSchema gives this schema :
|-- BeginStep: array (nullable = true)
 |    |-- element: struct (containsNull = true)
 |    |    |-- _Code: string (nullable = true)
 |    |    |-- _VALUE: string (nullable = true)

Any idea how to define a structType fro this please ?

A: You can create the schema as below
val schema = StructType(
    List(
      StructField("BeginStep", ArrayType(
        StructType(
          List(
            StructField("_CODE", StringType),
            StructField("_VALUE", StringType)
          )
        )
      ))
    )
  )

A: Try below code.
import org.apache.spark.sql.types._

val schema = new StructType()
.add(
    StructField(
        "BeginStep",
        ArrayType(
            new StructType()
            .add(StructField("_Code",StringType,true))
            .add(StructField("_VALUE",StringType,true))
            ,true
        ),true)
    )

scala> schema.printTreeString

root
 |-- BeginStep: array (nullable = true)
 |    |-- element: struct (containsNull = true)
 |    |    |-- _Code: string (nullable = true)
 |    |    |-- _VALUE: string (nullable = true)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
package io.druid.storage.s3;

import org.easymock.EasyMock;
import org.jets3t.service.S3ServiceException;
import org.jets3t.service.impl.rest.httpclient.RestS3Service;
import org.jets3t.service.model.S3Object;
import org.junit.Assert;
import org.junit.Test;

import java.net.URI;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;

public class S3TimestampVersionedDataFinderTest
{

  @Test
  public void testSimpleLatestVersion() throws S3ServiceException
  {
    String bucket = "bucket";
    String keyPrefix = "prefix/dir/0";
    RestS3Service s3Client = EasyMock.createStrictMock(RestS3Service.class);

    S3Object object0 = new S3Object(), object1 = new S3Object();

    object0.setBucketName(bucket);
    object0.setKey(keyPrefix + "/renames-0.gz");
    object0.setLastModifiedDate(new Date(0));

    object1.setBucketName(bucket);
    object1.setKey(keyPrefix + "/renames-1.gz");
    object1.setLastModifiedDate(new Date(1));

    EasyMock.expect(s3Client.listObjects(EasyMock.eq(bucket), EasyMock.anyString(), EasyMock.eq("/"))).andReturn(
        new S3Object[]{object0, object1}
    ).once();
    S3TimestampVersionedDataFinder finder = new S3TimestampVersionedDataFinder(s3Client);

    Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("renames-[0-9]*\\.gz");

    EasyMock.replay(s3Client);

    URI latest = finder.getLatestVersion(URI.create(String.format("s3://%s/%s", bucket, object0.getKey())), pattern);

    EasyMock.verify(s3Client);

    URI expected = URI.create(String.format("s3://%s/%s", bucket, object1.getKey()));

    Assert.assertEquals(expected, latest);
  }

  @Test
  public void testMissing() throws S3ServiceException
  {
    String bucket = "bucket";
    String keyPrefix = "prefix/dir/0";
    RestS3Service s3Client = EasyMock.createStrictMock(RestS3Service.class);

    S3Object object0 = new S3Object(), object1 = new S3Object();

    object0.setBucketName(bucket);
    object0.setKey(keyPrefix + "/renames-0.gz");
    object0.setLastModifiedDate(new Date(0));

    object1.setBucketName(bucket);
    object1.setKey(keyPrefix + "/renames-1.gz");
    object1.setLastModifiedDate(new Date(1));

    EasyMock.expect(s3Client.listObjects(EasyMock.eq(bucket), EasyMock.anyString(), EasyMock.eq("/"))).andReturn(
        null
    ).once();
    S3TimestampVersionedDataFinder finder = new S3TimestampVersionedDataFinder(s3Client);

    Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("renames-[0-9]*\\.gz");

    EasyMock.replay(s3Client);

    URI latest = finder.getLatestVersion(URI.create(String.format("s3://%s/%s", bucket, object0.getKey())), pattern);

    EasyMock.verify(s3Client);

    Assert.assertEquals(null, latest);
  }

  @Test
  public void testFindSelf() throws S3ServiceException
  {
    String bucket = "bucket";
    String keyPrefix = "prefix/dir/0";
    RestS3Service s3Client = EasyMock.createStrictMock(RestS3Service.class);

    S3Object object0 = new S3Object();

    object0.setBucketName(bucket);
    object0.setKey(keyPrefix + "/renames-0.gz");
    object0.setLastModifiedDate(new Date(0));

    EasyMock.expect(s3Client.listObjects(EasyMock.eq(bucket), EasyMock.anyString(), EasyMock.eq("/"))).andReturn(
        new S3Object[]{object0}
    ).once();
    S3TimestampVersionedDataFinder finder = new S3TimestampVersionedDataFinder(s3Client);

    Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("renames-[0-9]*\\.gz");

    EasyMock.replay(s3Client);

    URI latest = finder.getLatestVersion(URI.create(String.format("s3://%s/%s", bucket, object0.getKey())), pattern);

    EasyMock.verify(s3Client);

    URI expected = URI.create(String.format("s3://%s/%s", bucket, object0.getKey()));

    Assert.assertEquals(expected, latest);
  }

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Ah, it does feel good to laugh, Pee-wee!
Amid all the joking, giggling, shrieking and biking (obviously), the remaining chefs competed for the final four spots of the season.
Were all those pancakes necessary? Who made them? More importantly, who ate them?
The chefs enter the San Antonio kitchen, faced with a ridiculous number of pancakes and high-pitched Pee-wee Herman as their guest judge. Their challenge is to make a version of this breakfast favorite, putting their own spin on the dish to impress him.
All they got was a map, $100 and bike gear.
They must bike around the city, shop for ingredients with $100, find a place to prep and cook and then make it to lunch on time.
After initially shopping at the farmers' market, they are sweaty, wearing helmets and interrupting restaurant workers to ask to use their kitchens. For TV purposes, I'm sure these businesses were warned, but it still somehow feels awkward.
Hello, I'm a gross stranger in a helmet. Ok if I cook here??
Sarah makes a soft-boiled egg salad with summer vegetables and chicken skin vinaigrette. Tom yet again dishes out a smarmy insult: "The eggs were perfectly cooked. They were also perfectly underseasoned." This is the dish that made Pee-wee scream, "WHERE'S THE SALT?!" in an even crazier voice than normal.
It's yummy, but too big a portion, too rich.
Grayson does a spinach and egg yolk-stuffed chicken breast and butternut squash.
Because of the way he poached the chicken, it turned out rubbery, which is no bueno.
Ed makes chicken and grits, corn, kale, okra and tomato salad.
By meeting two of Pee-wee's requests (spicy food and chicken), he ranks with the favorites.
Paul goes spicier with a red curry gastrique atop crispy-skinned chicken and fresh and roasted vegetables.
Lindsay serves zucchini stuffed braised beef cheek and rice and a salad with pickled carrots. She ends up on top and gets her first individual win.
After Sarah's underseasoned eggs, Grayson's overbearing stuffed chicken and Ed's rubbery chicken, Grayson had to say goodbye, evening the guy-girl divide to two each.
Sadly, Grayson had the most expressive faces and soundbytes.
I'm excited for the next ep, when either Grayson or Beverley will re-enter the competition, I'm also kind of dreading it. Each of the chefs is shown in tears. What the heck's going on? There's no crying in… Texas?
Top Chef airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on Bravo, and you should probably be watching since it looks like a Houston native is gonna win. Just saying.


CryptoWall's Return, And What We Can Do To Help!
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When CryptoWall 4.0 infiltrates the computer, it injects itself into your Web Browser and disables System Restore, Shadow Volume Copies, as well as Windows Startup Repair. In turn, that leaves the typical computer user completely vulnerable to stop the encryption from happening, if there is no decent antivirus software available as a capable barrier.
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text:
Q: How to accept parameters in a Python class constructor? class Druid:
    def __init__(self, Attack, Defence, Speed, Money, Crit):
        self.attack = DAP
        self.defence = DDP
        self.speed = DSpeed
        self.money = DMoney
        self.crit = DCC
    def Druid_stat(self):
        return '{} {}'.format(self.DAP, self.DDP)

Human_Druid = Druid(8, 7, 3, 50, 5)

print(Human_Druid.Druid_Stat())

then I get the errors of
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/ianbrown/Desktop/Shannara_Cronicles_ALPHA.py", line 13, in <module>
Human_Druid = Druid(8, 7, 3, 50, 5)
  File "/Users/ianbrown/Desktop/Shannara_Cronicles_ALPHA.py", line 5, in __init__
self.attack = DAP
NameError: global name 'DAP' is not defined

It's probably really obvious and I've been comparing it to the tutorial code just with minor adjustments eg. class names and attributes etc.

A:
just with minor adjustments eg. class names and attributes etc.

You need to be super careful with naming. Python doesn't know what your variables mean or how to infer one name from the other.
It may be obvious to you that Attack has the same meaning as DAP - but that's just obvious to you, not to anyone else and certainly not to Python. All it sees are names that you give to things.
So I assume what you want to achieve is this (red arrows pointing from the constructor argument to the respective instance variable):

Right? To do this you have to keep consistent with naming:
class Druid:
    def __init__(self, attack, defence, speed, money, crit):
        self.attack = attack
        self.defence = defence
        self.speed = speed
        self.money = money
        self.crit = crit
    def Druid_stat(self):
        return '{} {}'.format(self.attack, self.defence)

Human_Druid = Druid(8, 7, 3, 50, 5)
print(Human_Druid.Druid_Stat())

Note I also changed the names in the constructor, the __init__ method, to lowercase. While not technically required, it is a convention in Python to write variables in lowercase (as in attack, defence etc.), class names in CapWords form (e.g. Druid) and constants in all UPPERCASE.

A: This is not an OOP problem. You try to assign the variable DAP to self.attack but you never set DAP in the first place.
What I asume you are trying to do is:
self.attack = Attack

Attack is set to 8 when creating the object. You must do the same for the other variables as well.

A: In your constructor (the __init__), you are stating that your Druid class' variables are attack, defence, speed, money and crit.  NB: they being all lower case matters -- your constructor inputs (viz., Attack, Defence, Speed, Money, Crit) are different by virtue of the initial letter being upper case.
I do not understand why the DAP, DDP and the other D names show up, but they do not belong there.
Seems like you are trying to adapt an example from wherever you are reading, but you have done a hodge-podge of retaining some of what you read while changing other parts and gotten yourself into a good deal of confusion.

A: The error that you're receiving seems to be coming from 'DAP' not being declared.
Try declaring these variables before the method, and giving the class the object type
class Druid(object):
    DAP = 0
    DDP = 0
    def __init__(self, Attack, Defence, Speed, Money, Crit):
        self.attack = DAP
        self.defence = DDP
        self.speed = DSpeed
        self.money = DMoney
        self.crit = DCC
    def Druid_stat(self):
        return '{} {}'.format(self.DAP, self.DDP)

Human_Druid = Druid(8, 7, 3, 50, 5)

print(Human_Druid.Druid_Stat())

You can also declare the variables inside of the init method,
class Druid(object):

        def __init__(self, Attack, Defence, Speed, Money, Crit):
            DAP = 0
            DDP = 0
            self.attack = DAP
            self.defence = DDP
            self.speed = DSpeed
            self.money = DMoney
            self.crit = DCC
        def Druid_stat(self):
            return '{} {}'.format(self.DAP, self.DDP)

    Human_Druid = Druid(8, 7, 3, 50, 5)

    print(Human_Druid.Druid_Stat())

And finally, I may be incorrect on this, but you're passing in values to the method, without them being used? So what you may be looking for is something like this:
class Druid(object):

        def __init__(self, Attack, Defence, Speed, Money, Crit):
            self.attack = Attack
            self.defence = Defence
            self.speed = Speed
            self.money = Money
            self.crit = Crit
        def Druid_stat(self):
            return '{} {}'.format(self.DAP, self.DDP)

    Human_Druid = Druid(8, 7, 3, 50, 5)

    print(Human_Druid.Druid_Stat())


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text:
Back to Words of Wisdom
Words of Wisdom for March
"It may be well to state here that, having been reared by a kind aunt in Pennsylvania, whose usefulness with the sick was continually sought, I early conceived a liking for, and sought every opportunity to relieve the sufferings of others. Later in life I devoted my time, when best I could, to nursing as a business, serving under different doctors for a period of eight years (from 1852 to 1860); most of the time at my adopted home in Charlestown, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. From these doctors I received letters commending me to the faculty of the New England Female Medical College, whence, four years afterward, I received the degree of doctress of medicine."
— Rebecca Davis Lee, the first black woman to receive a medical degree, describes the progression of experiences that led her to study and practice medicine in her publication, "A Book of Medical Discourses," (1883)
What happened Today in History that illustrates this quote?
"Too oft, we own, the stage with dangerous art
In wanton scenes, has play'd a Syren's part,
Yet if the Muse, unfaithful to her trust,
Has sometimes stray'd from what was pure and just;
Has she not oft, with awful virtue's rage.
Struck home at vice, and nobly trod the stage?
Then as you'd treat a favourite fair's mistake,
Pray spare her foibles for her virtues stake:
And whilst her chastest scenes are made appear,
(For none but such will find admittance here)
The muse's friends, we hope, will join the cause,
And crown our best endeavours with applause."
Image by Charles Willson Peale, courtesy of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation: In 1771, Charles Willson Peale painted this portrait of actress Nancy Hallam, dressed in her costume as the boy Fidele in Shakespeare's Cymbeline. Hallam was a cousin of Lewis Hallam the younger, who in 1752 had brought the first theater company from England to the colonies. Based in New York, Hallam's company also performed in Philadelphia in the 1750s and 1760s.
— Prologue to first performance of Hallam's Company in Philadelphia, 1754
"The most interesting thing about a postage stamp is the persistence with which it sticks to its job."
— Napoleon Hill, an American author in the new thought tradition of the previous century, and an early producer of personal-success literature.
"The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people."
— George Washington, First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789
"Those who don't know how to weep with their whole heart, don't know how to laugh either."
— Golda Meir (May 3, 1898 – December 8, 1978), an Israeli teacher, kibbutznik, stateswoman and politician and the fourth Prime Minister of Israel.
"Our country is in danger, but not to be despaired of. Our enemies are numerous and powerful; but we have many friends, determining to be free, and heaven and earth will aid the resolution. On you depend the fortunes of America. You are to decide the important question, on which rest the happiness and liberty of millions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves."
— Joseph Warren, American doctor who played a leading role in American Patriot organizations in Boston in the early days of the American Revolution, eventually serving as president of the revolutionary Massachusetts Provincial Congress (June 11, 1741 – June 17, 1775)
"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before."
"The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?"
Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, editor, and literary critic. In 1835, Poe, then 26, married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm. They were married for eleven years until her early death, which may have inspired some of his writing.
"On Tuesday, June 24, Mrs. Andrew Carnegie died at her home in New York City, in her eighty-ninth year. This brought to an end a long and exceptional life of great distinction and fine living. Although since the death of her husband in 1919 Mrs. Carnegie had seldom visited Pittsburgh, she was known to many here for her high purpose, kindliness, and nobility of character.
"Notwithstanding the great wealth and prominence of her husband, she played her individual part in all his philanthropies as a counselor and an enthusiastic co-planner in his hopes for the betterment of the human race. She was self-effacing in her own benefactions, which were many, but fully lived up to what she felt to be the responsibilities placed upon her by her opportunities for service. A true lady in the old fashioned sense of the word, she was most gracious and kindly to all with whom she came in contact and could well be taken as an outstanding example of American womanhood."
— Obituary in "Carnegie Magazine," of Louise Whitfield Carnegie, June 24, 1946
"As to the presidency, the two happiest days of my life were those of my entrance upon the office and my surrender of it."
— President Martin Van Buren, in office March 4, 1837 – March 4, 1841
"A little flattery will support a man through great fatigue."
— President James Monroe, the fifth US President, 1817-1825; pictured here with First Lady Elizabeth Kortright Monroe.
"Man is not the only animal who labors; but he is the only one who improves his workmanship. The patent laws have secured to the inventor, for a limited time, the exclusive use of his invention; and thereby added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius, in the discovery and production of new and useful things."
— Abraham Lincoln, from a lecture he delivered on discoveries and inventions before he became president.
"Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained."
— Physicist and chemist Marie Curie (November 7, 1867 - July 4, 1934), who was awarded the Nobel Prize twice for her work in radioactivity
"Chicago is constantly auditioning for the world, determined that one day, on the streets of Barcelona, in Berlin's cabarets, in the coffee shops of Istanbul, people will know and love us in our multidimensional glory, dream of us the way they dream of San Francisco and New York."
— Chicago Tribune Pulitzer Prize Winner Mary Schmich • Image from the cover of The Chicago Negro Business Men and Women, Where they Are Located, by L. W. Washington, Chicago: Flanders Printing Co., 1912.
Old Uncle Sam come there to change, some pancakes and some onions, for 'lasses cakes, to carry home, to give his wife and young ones.
— 13th stanza of "Yankee Doodle." It is not clear whether this reference is to Uncle Sam as a metaphor for the United States, or to an actual person named Sam. The lyrics as a whole clearly deride the military efforts of the young nation, besieging the British at Boston.
"One of my primary objects is to form the tools so the tools themselves shall fashion the work and give to every part its just proportion."
— Eli Whitney (December 8, 1765 – January 8, 1825) was an American inventor best known for inventing the cotton gin. This was one of the key inventions of the Industrial Revolution and shaped the economy of the Antebellum South.
"Bread costs ten cents a pound and is made of Indian corn meal; eggs from fifty cents a dozen; milk fourteen cents a gallon, We eat meat, fish, peas, and wild beans and many kinds of fruits and vegetables, such as pineapple, which is the most excellent of all fruits; watermelon, sweet potatoes; pippins . . . figs, bananas, pecans, cashews.
"In fact, we live on wild beef, deer, swans, geese and wild turkeys, hares, hens, ducks, teals, pheasants, partridges, quails and other fowl and game of different kinds. The rivers are teeming with enormous fish, especially turbot which is an excellent fish, ray, carp, and many other fishes unknown in France. They make much use of chocolate with milk and coffee. A lady of the country has given good provision of it. We drink it every day. During Lent, meat is allowed three times a week, and during the year, meat is allowed on Saturday as in the Island of St. Domingo.
"We accustom ourselves wonderfully well to the wild food of this country. We eat bread which is half rice and half flour. There is here a wild grape larger than the French grape, but it is not in clusters. It is served in a dish like plums. What is eaten most and is most common is rice cooked with milk. The people of Louisiana find very good a food called 'sagamite,' which is made of Indian corn crushed in a mortar, then boiled in water, and eaten with butter or cream."
— A letter from Sister St. Stanislas Hachard (1704-1760), in which she provides lists of ingredients to include in "The 18th Century Creole Pantry," New Orleans, LA.
"No people in the world profess so high a respect for liberty and equality as the people of the United States, and yet no people hold so many slaves, or make such great distinctions between man and man." Read more here.
— Rev. Peter Williams, Jr., the minister at the largest predominately black Episcopal Church in New York City, who gave an impassioned speech on July 4, 1830, calling for African American allegiance to the U.S. but also demanding that the nation treat its black citizens as the full equal of others.
"The general congratulates the army on the very interesting proceedings of the parliament of Ireland and the inhabitants of that country which have been lately communicated; not only as they appear calculated to remove those heavy and tyrannical oppressions on their trade but to restore to a brave and generous people their ancient rights and freedom and by their operations to promote the cause of America.
"Desirous of impressing upon the minds of the army, transactions so important in their nature, the general directs that all fatigue and working parties cease for tomorrow the seventeenth, a day held in particular regard by the people of the nation. At the same time that he orders this, he persuades himself that the celebration of the day will not be attended with the least rioting or disorder, the officers to be at their quarters in camp and the troops of the state line to keep within their own encampment."
— General order from Gen. George Washington Head Quarters Morris Town, March 16, 1780
"A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad."
— Theodore Roosevelt (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), was an American statesman, author, explorer, soldier, naturalist, and reformer who served as the 26th President of the United States from 1901 to 1909. As a leader of the Republican Party during this time, he became a driving force for the Progressive Era in the United States in the early 20th century.
"Old-fashioned ways which no longer apply to changed conditions are a snare in which the feet of women have always become readily entangled."
— Jane Addams (September 6, 1860 – May 21, 1935) was a pioneer American settlement activist/reformer, social worker, and public philosopher.
"All my life I wanted to be a bank robber. Carry a gun and wear a mask. Now that it's happened I guess I'm just about the best bank robber they ever had. And I sure am happy."
— John Dillinger, (June 22, 1903 – July 22, 1934) was an infamous American gangster in the Depression-era United States, who operated with a group of men known by some as the Terror Gang, which is accused of robbing 24 banks and four police stations.
"If the imagination could describe what our senses enable us to feel from sight and touch, reason itself would recoil in horror, and it is no easy matter to say whether the sight of an entire city in flames was more horrible to behold than the suffering and pitiable condition in which everyone was involved. Mothers, in search of a sanctuary or refuge for their little ones, and abandoning — their earthly goods to the greed of the relentless enemy, would retire to out-of-the-way places rather than be witnesses of their utter ruin.
"Fathers and husbands were busy in saving whatever objects the rapidly spreading flames would permit them to bear off, while the general bewilderment was such as to prevent them from finding even for these a place of security. The obscurity of the night coming on threw its mantle for a while over the saddening spectacle; but more horrible still was the sight, when day began to dawn, of entire families pouring forth into the public highways, yielding to their lamentations and despair, who, but a few hours before, had been basking in the enjoyment of more than the ordinary comforts of life.
"The tears, the heartbreaking sobs and the pallid faces of the wretched people mirrored the dire fatality that had overcome a city, now in ruins, transformed within the space of five hours into an arid and fearful, desert. Such was the sad ending of a work of death, the result of seventy years of industry."
— Governor Esteban Rodríguez Miró (1744 – June 4, 1795), summarizing the suffering that occurred during the Great New Orleans Fire of 1788. The Spanish army officer was governor of the Spanish American provinces of Louisiana and Florida. He was one of the most popular of the Spanish governors largely because of his prompt response to the 1788 fire that devastated New Orleans.
Martha Washington often recalled the two saddest days of her life. The first was December 14, 1799, when her husband died. The second was in January 1801 when Thomas Jefferson visited Mount Vernon.
As a close friend explained, "She assured a party of gentlemen, of which I was one ... that next to the loss of her husband," Jefferson's visit was the "most painful occurrence of her life."
She had come to dislike Jefferson for his frequent attacks on President George Washington as a monarchist bent on destroying the rule of the people and a senile follower of the policies of Alexander Hamilton.
Jefferson refused to attend memorial services for the president, saying in private that the "republican spirit" in the nation might revive now that Washington was dead and the Federalists could no longer hide behind his heroic image.
In her late teens, Martha Dandridge caught the eye of Daniel Parke Custis, a wealthy Virginia planter 20 years her senior. Custis' father initially opposed the marriage, viewing the prospective bride's family as not being wealthy enough. He finally gave his consent, however, and the two were married in May of 1750. In their seven years together the couple had four children, two of whom died as toddlers. Daniel's sudden death in 1757 left Martha as the wealthiest widow in Virginia, with a 17,500 acre estate to manage and two very young children to raise alone, at the age of just 26. Several men, including a militia officer less than a year younger than Martha named George Washington, began courting her the following year. She married Washington on Jan. 6, 1759, and moved to his family home several months later. The next 16 years of Martha Washington's life were largely spent at Mount Vernon.
"I certainly feel that the time is not far distant when a knowledge of the principles of diet will be an essential part of one's education. Then mankind will eat to live, be able to do better mental and physical work and disease will be less frequent."
— Fannie Farmer (1857-1915) was an American culinary expert whose Boston Cooking-School Cook Book became a widely used culinary text.
"That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be and often is, right under another. God said thou shalt not kill—at another time he said thou shalt utterly destroy. This is the principle on which the government of heaven is conducted — by revelation adapted to the circumstances in which the elders of the kingdom are placed. Whatever God requires is right ... even things which may be considered abominable to all those who do not understand the order of heaven."
— Joseph Smith, American religious leader and founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement.
"But for you there would have been no Battle of Bull Run."
— Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America, at the trial of Civil War hostess and spy Rose Greenhow. Known as "Wild Rose," the woman born in Montgomery County, Maryland in 1817 was a leader in Washington society. Known to be a passionate secessionist, and one of the most renowned spies in the Civil War, among her accomplishments was the secret message she sent to General Pierre G.T. Beauregard which ultimately caused him to win the battle of Bull Run. She spied so successfully for the Confederacy that Jefferson Davis credited her with winning the battle of Manassas.
"[T]his little event, of France possessing herself of Louisiana, ... is the embryo of a tornado which will burst on the countries on both shores of the Atlantic and involve in it's effects their highest destinies."
— President Thomas Jefferson wrote this prediction in an April 1802 letter to Pierre Samuel du Pont amid reports that Spain would retrocede to France the vast territory of Louisiana. As the United States had expanded westward, navigation of the Mississippi River and access to the port of New Orleans had become critical to American commerce, so this transfer of authority was cause for concern. Within a week of his letter to du Pont, Jefferson wrote U.S. Minister to France Robert Livingston: "every eye in the US. is now fixed on this affair of Louisiana. perhaps nothing since the revolutionary war has produced more uneasy sensations through the body of the nation."
"An enormous fleet appeared this morning, larger than has been before witnessed from this point. Everything looks as if preparations were almost ready for the enemy to commence a forward movement. The monster force before this city cannot longer remain in idleness. Persons well acquainted with the country bordering Yazoo Pass and the Coldwater say if the enemy succeed in getting their gunboats into the Coldwater they will never get out, and that an army of 1,000 could hold at bay and destroy an invading force of 50,000 in that country."
— A telegram to the "Richmond Enquirer" of Feb. 28 from the correspondent of the Memphis Appeal, writing from Vicksburgh.
"We arrived at the arroyo of San Joseph Cupertino (now Stevens Creek), which is useful only for travelers. Here we halted for the night, having come eight leagues in seven and a half hours. From this place we have seen at our right the estuary which runs from the port of San Francisco."
— From the diary on March 25, 1776 of Juan Bautista de Anza (July 6, 1736 – December 19, 1788) found the site for the Presidio of San Francisco on March 28, 1776.
"All trembling, I reached the Falls of Niagara, and oh, what a scene! My blood shudders still, although I am not a coward, at the grandeur of the Creator's power; and I gazed motionless on this new display of the irresistible force of one of His elements."
— John James Audubon (April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851), was an American ornithologist, naturalist, and painter.
1796 – The Jay Treaty between the United States and Great Britain comes into force, facilitating ten years of peaceful trade between the two nations.
1864 – American Civil War: Kilpatrick-Dahlgren Raid fails. His plans to free 15,000 Union soldiers being held near Richmond, Virginia are thwarted.
— Two events that occurred on February 29
"In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing."
Image by Van Gough: Sketch on cream, machine-made wove paper; pencil, pen, ink.
— Vincent Van Gogh, in a letter to his brother Theo on Oct. 3, 1883: "I drew, among others, a woman in the barge with crepe around her cap because she was in mourning, and later a mother with a small child - this one had a purple scarf around her head."
"We have only the name of masters, and rather than give up this, which would completely subject us to the despotism of the petticoat, I hope General Washington and all our brave heroes would fight."
— John Adams, in response to his wife Abigail's March 31, 1776 letter not to forget about the nation's women when fighting for America's independence from Great Britain. He declined Abigail's "extraordinary code of laws."
More Words of Wisdom
February April


text:
\section{Introduction}

Metamaterials are artificial composite structures that demonstrate unusual optical properties  not achievable in natural materials~\cite{OptMetamatShalaevBook2010,NatPhoton79582013}.
Hyperbolic metamaterials (HMMs) represent an important group of metamaterials characterised by specific relations between components of dielectric permittivity ($\varepsilon$) and magnetic susceptibility ($\mu$) tensors~\cite{NatPhoton79582013}.
Namely, the diagonal components of either $\varepsilon $ or $\mu $ tensors in
HMMs have opposite~signs.

The presently studied HMMs are mostly based on metal-dielectric composites,
whereas the presence of specially designed metallic elements, \mbox{\emph{e.~g.}}
metallic spheres, disks, rods, etc., provides the required properties
of $\varepsilon $ and $\mu $ tensors~\cite{LaserPhysLett,NatPhoton1412007,PhysRevLett.90.077405,apl8422442004}.
The successful application of this approach to the fabrication of HMMs has been
demonstrated in the microwave spectral range with use of metal wires and
split ring resonators~\cite{PhysRevLett.76.4773,Shelby77}.
The metal-dielectric HMMs have been developed in the near-infrared and visible frequency bands, see \mbox{\emph{e.~g.}}~\cite{Science31516862007,ApplPhysLett99151115,SchonbrunIEEEPhotonTechnolLett171196,JOptics140630012012}.
One of the intriguing effects observed in HMMs is negative refraction~\cite{OptExpress16154392008,Shalaev:05,NatPhoton1412007,Shelby77}.
This effect is very promising for the development of hyperlenses~\cite{Science31516862007,OptExpress1482472006} characterized by the spatial resolution beyond the diffraction limit as well as in optical cloaking~\cite{Science314977,NatPhoton12242007}.

As noticed in~\cite{OptExpress16154392008}, negative refraction materials can be based not only on HMMs but on photonic crystal (PC) structures as well.
Although both HMMs and PCs are complex structured materials, unlike the former, which can be considered as a quasi-homogeneous medium with the effective constitutive parameters, the latter possesses the elementary building blocks being of the same size order as the impinging wavelength.
Various optical effects in periodically stratified media that are, in fact, one-dimensional PC's caused by anomalous refraction  have been observed in works of Russell (see \textit{e.g.} Refs.~\onlinecite{ApplPhysB392311986,PRA333232,RussellBirksINPhotonicBandGapMaterials1996}).
It has been shown in Ref.~\onlinecite{PhysRevB.62.10696} that the hyperbolic dispersion of light modes can be achieved in such structures with positive $\varepsilon $ and $\mu$ tensors.
Recent publications ~\cite{Kavokin2005387,PhysRevLett.93.073902,NatureMater69462007} provide further details on the design of pure dielectric PC-based materials with hyperbolic dispersion.

Both in the metal-dielectric metamaterials and in the PC-based materials the propagation of
light is governed by the structure parameters and composition, so that the
external control of light trajectories is hardly achievable.
Meanwhile, it is technologically important to provide a significant tunability of the optical properties of the  materials, \emph{e.~g.} using ultrashort optical pulse pumping of free carriers~\cite{PhysRevB.66.081102}, introducing small perturbations in the near field of the photon modes or temperature tuning of the refractive index~\cite{ApplPhysLett848462004}.
To answer
this technological challenge one may try to embed in PCs objects that
willingly respond to the external impact and help modifying the optical
properties of the whole system~\cite{Tomadin:10}. The role of such tunable
elements can be played  \mbox{\emph{e.~g.}} by ultracold two-level atoms~\cite%
{PhysRevA.89.033828,Jaksch200552}, quantum dots~\cite{Nature4458962007},
diamond nitrogen-vacancy centers~\cite{Su:08}, or Cooper-pair boxes.

Recently, specially designed planar multilayer semiconductor structures demonstrating properties of resonant HMMs (RHMMs) have been theoretically proposed.
The model structure considered in~\cite{Sedov2015} represents a modified semiconductor Bragg mirror, containing periodically arranged quantum wells (QWs).
It was shown by modeling that such a structure should demonstrate properties of HMMs in a spectral range where the dispersion of its optical eigen-modes acquires a hyperbolic character.
Based on this similarity of eigen-mode dispersion properties, we refer to such a structure as RHMM.
This structure may be also qualified as a PC because its period is on the order of a half wavelength of light.
We shall use the term HMM because it was introduced in the previous publication~\cite{Sedov2015} and it correctly describes the phenomenology  of light propagation in the considered structures.
The structure proposed in Ref.~\onlinecite{Sedov2015} has a significant advantage over traditional HMMs since it contains no metallic elements that would absorb and
scatter light leading to unavoidable losses. In addition, it offers the
possibility of tuning its optical properties by applying external electric
and magnetic fields that modify the exciton radiative life-time and,
consequently, affect the exciton-light coupling strength.

In this paper, we demonstrate how the proposed RHMM allows tailoring of the wave packets and control of the effective refractive index and the group velocity of light.
We model propagation of light beams in such RHMMs and show the negative refraction and the control of the trajectory of the beams by external bias.

\begin{figure}[tbp]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=0.6\columnwidth]{FIG_Structure.eps}
\caption{(Color online) Schematic picture of RHMM, a spatially-periodic array of alternating dielectric layers of different widths and refractive indices, with the layers of one type contain single QWs placed in their centers.}
\label{FIG_Structure}
\end{figure}

\section{Negative effective mass in RHMM: the Low Angle of Incidence Limit}

We consider the structure
schematically shown in Fig.~\ref{FIG_Structure} which was first proposed by some
of the authors of this paper in~\cite{Sedov2015}. The structure represents
a spatially-periodic array of alternating dielectric layers of different
widths and refractive indices, with the layers of one type containing
single QWs placed in their centers.
We assume cylindric symmetry of the system and introduce the in-QW-plane radial coordinate~$\rho$.

To describe the optical dispersion properties of the structure, we use the
transfer matrix technique following \cite{AnnPhys3501948,kavokin2007}. Namely, we introduce
a vector $\Phi = \left(E ({\mathbf{r}, t}), c B ({\mathbf{r}, t}) \right)^{%
\mathrm{T}} $, where $E ({\mathbf{r}, t})$ and $B ({\mathbf{r}, t})$ are the
amplitudes of electric and magnetic fields, a superscript ($^{\mathrm{T}}$) denotes transposition.
Considering propagation in the $z$ direction that coincides with the structure growth axis, it is possible to link the field amplitude of a
light wave entering the layer of width $D$ with one of a light wave leaving this layer by the following equation:
\begin{equation}
\hat{T} \left. \Phi \right| _{z=z_i} = \left. \Phi \right| _{z=z_i + D},
\end{equation}
where $\hat{T}$ is the transfer matrix through the period of the structure.
Since each period $D$ is formed by four successive layers, namely, the first
type half layer, QW, the first type half layer again, and the second type layer,
the transfer matrix $\hat{T}$ is found as a product of the transfer matrices
through the corresponding layers in the reverse order, \emph{i.e.}, $\hat{T}
= \hat{T}_{d_2} \hat{T}_{d_1 / 2} \hat{T}_{\mathrm{QW}} \hat{T}_{d_1/2}$.
The submatrices are given by
\begin{subequations}
\label{TrMatrices}
\begin{eqnarray}
\label{TrMatricesa}
& &\hat{T}_{d_j} =
\begin{pmatrix}
\cos (k_{zj} d_j) & \frac{i k_0}{k_{zj}} \sin (k_{zj} d_j) \\
\frac{i k_{zj}}{k_0} \sin (k_{zj} d_j) & \cos (k_{zj} d_j)%
\end{pmatrix},
\\ \label{TrMatricesb}
& &\hat{T} _{\mathrm{QW}} =
\begin{pmatrix}
1 & 0 \\
2\frac{k_{z1} r_{\text{QW}} }{k_0 t_{\text{QW}}} & 1%
\end{pmatrix}%
,
\end{eqnarray}
\end{subequations}
where $k_{0}=\omega /c$, and $k_{z1,2}=\sqrt{n_{1,2}^{2}k_{0}^{2} - {k}%
_{\rho }^{2}}$, and $\mathbf{k}_{\rho }=(k_{x},k_{y})$ is the in-plane
wavevector component; $n_{1,2}$ are the refractive indices of the first and
second sublayers respectively.
In the calculations we assume QWs to be infinitely thin.
The coefficients $r_{\text{QW}}$ and $t_{\text{QW}} = 1 + r_{\text{QW}}$ are the amplitude reflection and transmission coefficients of the~QW.
According to \cite{kavokin2007,IvchenkoBook}, the former is given by
\begin{equation}
\label{ReflectionWithSuscept}
r_{\text{QW}} = \frac{\left. i n_1 k_0 \Gamma _0 \right/ k_{z1}}{\omega_{X} - \omega -i \left( \Gamma + \left. n_1 k_0 \Gamma _0 \right/ k_{z1}\right) }.
\end{equation}
where $ \Gamma _{0}$ and $ \Gamma$ determine the radiative and nonradiative decay rates, respectively, and $\omega _{X}$ is the QW exciton resonance frequency.
The relative QW permittivity in the growth direction can be estimated with respect to the following expression:
\begin{equation}
\label{PermittGrDir}
\varepsilon _{\text{QW}} =
\varepsilon_{1} \left(1 + \frac{2 n_1 \Gamma _{0} / k_{z1} D}{\omega_{X} - \omega -i \Gamma} \right).
\end{equation}

\begin{figure}[tbp]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=\columnwidth]{FIG_Dispersions.eps}
\caption{(Color online) Dispersion of the photonic eigen-modes for the structure (a) without and (b) with embedded QWs (b).
(c) --- Equi-frequency contours in the reciprocal space showing the structure eigen modes  belonging to the lowest dispersion band corresponding to the different values of $\Gamma_0$:
$\Gamma_0 = 0$ for the red (solid) curves,
$\hbar \Gamma_0 = 2$~meV for the green (dashed) curves,
and $\hbar \Gamma_0 = 10$~meV for the blue (dash-dotted) curves.
Different thicknesses of the curves correspond to different energies $\hbar \omega$ (from the thickest to the thinnest): 2.94~meV, 2.89~meV and 2.84~meV, respectively.
(Table I contains the corresponding relative QW permittivities $\varepsilon _{\text{QW}}$.)
(d) Inverse exciton-polariton effective mass tensor components in the structure.
The red surface corresponds to the effective mass in the  $z$-direction,  $m ^{*} _{z}$ ($z$~being the growth axis of the structure), and the green surface corresponds to the in-plane effective mass, $m ^{*} _{\protect\rho}$.
The parameters used in the calculation are given in the text.
The QW radiative decay rate for (d) is taken as $\hbar \Gamma _0 = 2\,\text{\rm meV}$. }
\label{FIG_Dispersions}
\end{figure}

The dispersion equation for the eigen-modes of an infinite periodic structure is given by
\begin{equation}  \label{InitialDispEq}
\cos (KD) = \frac{1}{2} \text{Tr}[\hat{T}],
\end{equation}
where $K$ is a normal to QW-plane pseudo-wave vector component. Figures~\ref{FIG_Dispersions} (a) and (b) demonstrate dispersions of the light modes in a modified Bragg mirror
structure without [Fig.~\ref{FIG_Dispersions}(a)] and with [Fig.~\ref{FIG_Dispersions}(b)] embedded periodically arranged narrow QWs
characterized by the radiative decay rate $\hbar \Gamma _{0} = 2\,\text{\rm meV}$.
As a model structure we consider a $\text{GaN}/ \text{Al}_{0.3}\text{Ga}_{0.7}\text{N}$
Bragg mirror with embedded thin $\text{In}_{0.12}\text{Ga}_{0.88}\text{N}$ quantum wells.
The thicknesses of the layers and their refractive indices are taken as $%
d_{1}=64.8\,\text{\rm nm}$, $n_{1}=2.55$ and $d_{2}=115.3\,\text{\rm nm}$, $n_{2}=2.15$, the period of
the lattice $D=d_{1}+d_{2}$ is $180.1\,\text{\rm nm}$.
For the given parameters the structure exhibits a second photonic band gap centered to $\hbar \omega _{B} \simeq 3\,\text{\rm eV}$ in a QW-free case, see.~Fig.~\ref{FIG_Dispersions}(a).
The QW exciton resonance energy $\hbar \omega _{X}$ is tuned close to the lower boundary of the second photonic band gap, $\hbar \omega _{X} \simeq 2.95\,\text{\rm eV}$.
The QW nonradiative decay rate is taken as $\hbar \Gamma = 0.1\,\text{\rm meV}$.
The radiative decay rate $\Gamma _0$ is a tunable parameter that strongly depends on the applied electric field.
The tuning of $\Gamma _0$ by the external bias is addressed in the Appendix.

The presence of QWs leads to two principal changes in the dispersion of the eigen-modes.
The first one is the appearance of four dispersion branches instead of the two characteristic of a QW-free structure due to the
vacuum field Rabi-splitting originated from the QW exciton-photon coupling.
The resulting eigen-states of the system are exciton-polaritons.

The other change is the formation of the three-dimensional polaritonic band gap [see Fig.~\ref{FIG_Dispersions}(b)].
It is necessary to mention, that the presence of QWs pushes the lowest dispersion branch (LB) to the lower energies and the greater the shift, the larger the value of $\Gamma _0$.
If a QW exciton is resonant with an eigenmode of the photonic cavity structure, the exciton-photon results in the appearance of new exciton-polariton eigen modes, in the strong coupling regime.
In the limit of weak coupling, exciton and photon modes would cross each other.
In contrast, the strong coupling manifests itself in the anticrossing (avoided crossing) of the modes.
The dispersion of the structure eigenmodes is no more photonic or excitonic, but polaritonic.
The increase of the exciton-photon coupling due to the increase of the exciton radiative decay rate results in the growing energy level repulsion.
The exciton radiative decay rate is controlled by the applied electric field (see the Appendix).

Figure~\ref{FIG_Dispersions}(c) demonstrates equi-frequency contours (EFCs) in the $( K k_{\rho} )$ plane for a number of LB eigen energies $\hbar \omega$  for different values of $\Gamma_{0}$.
It is clearly seen, that with the increase of $\Gamma_0$ opposite branches of EFCs approach each other until the gap in the $K$ direction closes and the gap in the $k_{\rho}$ direction opens.
Table I below gives values of the relative QW permittivity $\varepsilon _{\text{QW}}$ in the growth direction estimated with respect to Eq.~\eqref{PermittGrDir} for $\Gamma_0$ and $\omega$ used in Fig.~\ref{FIG_Dispersions}(c).
The case $\Gamma_0 = 0$ corresponds to the absence of QWs in the structure, hence the permittivity of $\text{GaN}$ layers remains unmodulated and equal to $\varepsilon _1$.

\begin{table}
\caption{Relative QW permittivity $\varepsilon_{\text{QW}}$ in the growth direction.}
\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}{|c|c||c|}
\hline
& $\hbar \Gamma_0 = 2$~meV &  $\hbar \Gamma_0 = 10$~meV  \\
\hline\hline
$\hbar \omega $ & $\varepsilon _{\text{QW}} $ & $\varepsilon _{\text{QW}}$  \\ \hline
2.84~eV & $6.59372 + i 0.00008$ & $6.95861 + i 0.00041$\\
2.89~eV & $6.66685 + i 0.00027$ & $7.32424 + i 0.00137$\\
2.94~eV & $7.47172 + i 0.00969$  & $11.34860 +i 0.04846$\\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{center}
\end{table}

Hereafter, we consider only the LB and neglect three upper polariton branches that are split in energy and do not affect the propagation of light in the spectral range of our interest.
Our structure behaves like a HMM in the specific frequency range in the vicinity of the LB saddle point $(K, k_{\rho} = 0)$.

\subsection{A QW-free modified Bragg mirror}

Let us first consider the QW-free structure assuming $\Gamma_{0} = 0$.
Following~Ref.~\onlinecite{Kavokin2005387}, we can easily obtain the saddle-point frequency $\omega _0$.
To do this, we restrict ourselves to the limit $K,k_{\rho} \ll 1 / D$, \emph{i.e.}, we consider the system in the vicinity of the center of the first Brillouin zone (BZ).
We make the Taylor expansion of Eq.~\eqref{InitialDispEq} and obtain in the zeroth order
\begin{equation}  \label{DispRelEqnNearKkEqZero}
1=\cos \left( \theta _1 \right) \cos \left( \theta _2 \right) - \frac{n_1 ^2
+ n_2 ^2}{2n_1 n_2} \sin \left( \theta _1 \right) \sin \left( \theta _2
\right),
\end{equation}
where $\theta _{1,2} = \omega _{0j} n_{1,2} d_{1,2} / c$.
The subscript $j$ numerates dispersion branches.
For the QW-free structure $j = 1,2$.
In the general form  the effective photonic mass tensor components are given by $m_{j,\alpha}^{*}= \hbar \left( \left. \partial ^2 \omega _j \right/ \partial k_{\alpha}
^2\right) ^{-1}$ with $k_{\alpha} = K, k _{\rho}$.
Taking the second derivative of both right and left parts of Eq.~\eqref{InitialDispEq} over the wave vector components in the saddle point it is easy to obtain  analytical expressions for the effective photonic mass tensor components:
\begin{widetext}

\begin{subequations}
\label{PhotMasses}
\begin{multline}
\label{transPhotMass}
\left. m_{ j, z} ^{\rm ph}  \right| _{K,k_{\rho} = 0}= \frac{\hbar }{D^2 c} \left[
\sin(\theta _2) \cos(\theta _1) \left( d_2 n_2 + \frac{d_1 (n_1^2 + n_2^2)}{2n_2} \right)+
\sin(\theta _1) \cos(\theta _2) \left( d_1 n_1 + \frac{d_2 (n_1^2 + n_2^2)}{2n_1} \right)
\right],
\end{multline}
\begin{multline}
\label{inPlanePhotMass}
\left. m_{ j, \rho} ^{\rm ph} \right| _{K,k_{\rho} = 0} = \frac{D^2 \omega _{0j}}{c} m_{\rm j, z} ^{\rm ph}
\left[
\sin (\theta _2)\cos (\theta _1) \left( \frac{d_2}{n_2} + \frac{d_1 (n_1^2 + n_2^2)}{2 n_1 ^2 n_2} \right)  \right. \\
 \left. +
\sin (\theta _1)\cos (\theta _2) \left( \frac{d_1}{n_1} + \frac{d_2 (n_1^2 + n_2^2)}{2 n_1  n_2^2} \right) -
\sin{\theta _1}\sin{\theta _2} \frac{c(n_1^2 - n_2^2)^2}{2 n_1^3 n_2^3 \omega _{0j}}
\right] ^{-1},
\end{multline}
\end{subequations}
\end{widetext}
where we take $\theta _{1,2} = \theta _{1,2}|_{\omega_j = \omega_{0j}}$.

At $k _{\rho} \ll 1/D$ a photonic band gap appears at the $K$ direction.
Let us find a half-width of the band gap in the structure without embedded QWs following the method described in the Supplemental Material to Ref.~\onlinecite{Sedov2015}.
We introduce the parameter $\zeta = \frac{n_1 d_1}{n_2 d_2} - 1$ that characterizes the relative optical path lengths in the structure layers.
Generally speaking, for a modified Bragg structure this parameter is close to zero.
The center of the photonic band gap is characterized by a Bragg frequency that according to~\cite{PhysRevA.64.013809} is given by $\omega _{B} = \left. 2 \pi c \right/ (n_1 d_1 + n_2 d_2)$.
We introduce the parameter $\delta = \omega_{01} / \omega _{B} - 1$ that is also small in comparison with 1.
We expand Eq.~\eqref{DispRelEqnNearKkEqZero}  up to the second order in $\zeta$ and $\delta$.
As a result, we obtain the following expression for $\delta$: $\delta = \pm \frac{(n_1 - n_2) \zeta}{2(n_1 + n_2)}$.
Now it is easy to find a half-width of the band gap as~$\Omega _{B} = \omega _{B} |\delta|$.

In accordance with the foregoing, the eigenfrequency of the lower photonic branch at $K,k _{\rho} = 0$ is given by
\begin{equation}
\label{LowBrEigFrInCent}
 \omega _{01} \simeq \omega _B - \Omega _B.
\end{equation}

\subsection{Modified Bragg mirror with embedded QWs}

When adding the QWs to the structure, a new term describing the exciton impact appears in the right-hand side of the Eq.~\eqref{DispRelEqnNearKkEqZero}:
\begin{multline}
\frac{i r_{\text{QW}} }{t_{\text{QW}}} \left\{ \cos \left(
\theta _2 \right) \sin \left( \theta _1 \right) \vphantom{\frac{n_1}{n_2}} \right.\\
\left. + \left[
\frac{n_1}{n_2} \cos ^2 \left( \frac{\theta _1}{2}\right) \right. \left. -
\frac{n_2}{n_1} \sin ^2 \left( \frac{\theta _1}{2} \right) \right] \sin
\left( \theta _2 \right) \right\}.
\end{multline}

The expressions for the effective exciton-polariton masses in the vicinity of the saddle point can be obtained by the same technique as described above in the form
\begin{subequations}
\label{PolEffMasses}
\begin{eqnarray}
\left. m ^{*} _{j,z} \right| _{K,k_{\rho} = 0} &=& m ^{\mathrm{ph}} _{j,z} +i \Theta _1, \\
\left. m ^{*} _{j,\rho} \right| _{K,k_{\rho} = 0} &=& \frac{D^2 \omega }{c} m_{j,z} ^{*} \left(\Theta _2 - i \Theta _3 \right)^{-1}.
\end{eqnarray}
\end{subequations}

The parameters $\Theta _{1,2,3} (\omega _0, \Gamma _0)$ that characterize the QW exciton impact on the optical
properties of the considered RHMM are found in the form
\begin{widetext}
\begin{subequations}
\begin{multline}
\Theta _1 = \frac{\hbar r_{\text{QW}} ^{(0)}}{c D^2 t_{\text{QW}} ^{(0)}}
\left\{
i \frac{c r_{\text{QW}} ^{(0)}}{\Gamma _0 t_{\text{QW}} ^{(0)}}
\left[
\cos (\theta _2) \sin (\theta _1) + \sin (\theta _2) \left( \frac{n_1}{n_2} \cos ^2 \left( \frac{\theta _1}{2} \right) - \frac{n_2}{n_1} \sin ^2 \left( \frac{\theta _1}{2} \right) \right)
\right] \right. \\
 \left.+
\left[
d _1 n_1 \cos (\theta _1) \cos (\theta _2) - \sin (\theta _1) \sin (\theta _2) \left( d_2 n_2 +\frac{d_1 (n_1 ^2 + n_2 ^2)}{2 n_2} \right) \right. \right.
 \left. \left. +d_2 n_2 \left( \frac{n_1}{n_2} \cos ^2 \left( \frac{\theta _1}{2} \right) -\frac{n_2}{n_1} \sin ^2 \left( \frac{\theta _1}{2} \right) \right) \cos (\theta _2)
\right]
\right\},
\end{multline}
\begin{multline}
\Theta _3 = \frac{c^2 r_{\text{QW}} ^{(0)}}{t_{\text{QW}} ^{(0)}} \left[
\sin (\theta _1) \sin (\theta _2) \left( \frac{d_2}{n_2} + \frac{d_1 (n_1 ^2 + n_2 ^2)}{2 n_2 n_1 ^2} \right) -
\frac{d_1}{n_1} \cos (\theta _1) \cos (\theta _2) + \frac{c}{n_1 ^2 \omega _{0j}} \cos(\theta _2) \sin (\theta _1) \right.\\
\left. + \frac{c}{n_1 n_2 \omega _{0j}} \left( \frac{n_1 ^2}{ n_2 ^2} \cos ^2 \left( \frac{\theta _1}{2} \right) + \sin ^2 \left( \frac{\theta _1}{2} \right) \left( 1-\frac{2 n_2 ^2}{n_1 ^2} \right) \right) \sin (\theta _2) - \frac{d_2}{n_1} \left( \frac{n_1 ^2}{n_2 ^2} \cos ^2 \left( \frac{\theta _1}{2} \right) - \sin ^2 \left( \frac{\theta _1}{2} \right) \right) \cos(\theta _2)
\right],
\end{multline}
\end{subequations}
\end{widetext}
the parameter $\Theta _2$ is the rectangular bracket in the right part of~Eq.~\eqref{inPlanePhotMass};
$r_{\text{QW}} ^{(0)} \equiv \left. r_{\text{QW}} \right| _{K,k_{\rho} = 0}$,
$t_{\text{QW}} ^{(0)} \equiv \left. t_{\text{QW}} \right| _{K,k_{\rho} = 0}$.

In the vicinity of the saddle point of LB, the effective mass tensor
components $m_{\rho, \,z} ^{*} \equiv m_{1, \rho, \,z} ^{*}$ have opposite signs. This is clearly seen
in~Fig.~\ref{FIG_Dispersions}(d) where the dependencies of the inverse
in-plane (green surface), $m^{*} _{\rho}$, and transverse (red surface), $%
m^{*} _{z}$, effective masses on the position in the 1st BZ are shown. One
can see that $m^{*} _{\rho}>0$ while $m^{*} _{z}<0$. It also should be
mentioned that for the considered model structure the absolute value of $%
m^{*} _{z}$ is at least one order of magnitude smaller than $m^{*} _{\rho}$.
For example, according to Eqs.~\eqref{PolEffMasses}, the ratio $| \left.  m _{\rho } ^{*}\right/ m _{z} ^{*}|$ at the saddle point is  about 20.1 for QW-free structure, 21.6 for the structure with embedded QWs with $\hbar \Gamma _{0} = 2$~meV and grows to 30.7 for the structure with $\hbar\Gamma _{0} = 10$~meV.
Such a big difference introduces a strong anisotropy to the optical properties of the considered structure.

\begin{figure}[t!]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=0.85\columnwidth]{FIG_Pulse_Propagations.eps}
\caption{(Color online) Femtosecond laser pulse propagation in the multilayer structure schematically shown in Fig.~\ref{FIG_Structure}.
The parameter $\hbar \Gamma _{0}$ is taken as (a) $0\,\text{\rm meV}$ (that is equivalent to
the absence of QWs in the structure) and  (b) $10\,\text{\rm meV}$.
Graphs (c) and (d) demonstrate the parametric dependencies of the group velocity of light
in the $z$ direction, $v _{g, \, z}$, (c) on $\Gamma _{0}$ for a number of fixed values of  the wave-packet central frequency component $\omega _c$  and (d) on~$\omega_c$ for different values of $\Gamma _0$ (d) with $k _{\protect\rho} = 0$.
Values of $v _{g, \, z}$ are given in units of the speed of light in vacuum~$c$.
The vertical dashed lines correspond to  $\Gamma _0$ in (c) and $\omega _c$ in (d) from (a) and (b).
Horizontal dashed lines indicate the group velocities of the
wave packet,  with the considered values of $\Gamma _0$. }
\label{FIG_Pulse_Propagations}
\end{figure}

\section{Light speed manipulation in RHMM}

First, let us discuss the
propagation of a femtosecond laser pulse in the growth direction of the
structure ($z$-axis). We consider the Gaussian pulse in the form
\begin{equation}
E(z,t)=E_{0}\exp \left[ -\frac{(t-t_{0})^{2}}{2t_{w}^{2}}\right] \exp
[-i\omega _{c}t]\exp [-ik_{z}z],
\end{equation}%
centered on the frequency $\omega _{c}$; $E_{0}$ determines the pulse amplitude, $t_{w}$ is the half-width duration of the
pulse. Here we consider the wave packet whose spatial width $\rho _{w}$
exceeds the in-plane structure size, and we assume the intensity of light to
be uniformly distributed in the QW plane in each layer. We consider the normal
incidence geometry.
In the numerical calculations we take $t_{w}=50\,\text{\rm fs}$ and
$t_{0}=0.1\,\text{\rm ps}$, $\hbar \omega _{c}=0.95 \times \hbar \omega _{X}\simeq 2.8\,\text{\rm eV}$; $k_{\rho }=0$.

Figures~\ref{FIG_Pulse_Propagations} (a) and (b) demonstrate light pulse
propagation in the structure calculated for different values of $\Gamma _{0}$.
In Fig.~\ref{FIG_Pulse_Propagations}(a) we take $\Gamma _{0}=0$, which corresponds to the QW-free Bragg mirror.
In Fig.~\ref{FIG_Pulse_Propagations}(b) we consider the case of a Bragg mirror with embedded QWs characterized by a high radiative decay rate, $\hbar \Gamma _{0}=10\,\text{\rm meV}$.
Propagation of light has been modelled in the system starting with a vacuum layer of width $25\times D$ on the left-hand side of the structure.
In the middle part of the system we have placed an RHMM of $200$ layers of width $%
D$ each. The right-most part represents a $25\times D$ thick vacuum layer
again. It is clearly seen that $v_{g,\,z}$ significantly decreases with the
increase of $\Gamma _{0}$.
It is also confirmed by~Figs.~\ref{FIG_Pulse_Propagations} (c) and~\ref{FIG_Pulse_Propagations}(d) demonstrating the dependence of $v_{g,\,z}$ on $\Gamma _{0}$ (c)  for the fixed values of $\omega _c$ and its
dependence on $\omega _c$ (d) for several fixed values of $\Gamma
_{0}$. Such a tendency can be qualitatively explained as follows.
Once the parameter $\Gamma _{0}$ increases, the lowest branch moves down in energy, see~Figs.~\ref{FIG_Dispersions} (a) and~\ref{FIG_Dispersions}(b). Since in the
vicinity of $K,k_{\rho }\simeq 0$ the dependence $\omega (K)$ for the lowest
branch is convex, to conserve the energy the wave packet should reduce its
wavevector and group velocity $v_{g,\,z}$, see EFCs in Fig.~\ref{FIG_Dispersions}(c).
It is important to mention that
this conclusion is only correct in a specific frequency range, namely, for $\omega_c < \omega _{0}$.

The regular optical patterns in~Figs.~\ref{FIG_Pulse_Propagations} (a) and~\ref{FIG_Pulse_Propagations}(b) describe the interference of the propagating pulse and the pulses
reflected from vacuum-RHMM and RHMM-vacuum interfaces.

\section{Negative Refractive Response of RHMM}

Let us now consider a different
geometry of the experiment, where a monochromatic spatially focalized light
beam enters the structure from its side and propagates in the $\rho z$ plane;
see the inset in Fig.~\ref{FIG_Distribution_MANY}. We consider the
transmission of light through the interface between vacuum and RHMM. The
medium on the left is a vacuum characterized by a familiar linear dispersion $%
\omega =ck_{\mathrm{vac}}$. The spatially modulated structure of a Bragg
mirror we now consider in the continuous approximation as a homogeneous
effective dielectric medium characterized by the dispersion given by Eq.~%
\eqref{InitialDispEq} and by the tensorial effective mass of photons. This
approximation is valid if the typical spatial size of the light beam (beam
width $z_{w}$) is much larger than period of the structure, $z_{w}\gg D$, and at sufficiently low incidence angles.

\begin{figure}[tbp]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=0.85\columnwidth]{FIG_Distribution_MANY.eps}
\caption{(Color online)  Focalized light beam propagation in the $\protect\rho z$ plane simulated for
different values of $\Gamma _0$. The parameter $\hbar \Gamma _{0}$ is taken as $0\,\text{\rm eV}$ for (a) and $15\,\text{\rm meV}$ for (b). Panels (c) and (d) show the dependencies of the
refraction angle on $\Gamma _{0}$ for a number of fixed values of $\omega_c$ and on $\protect\omega_c$ for different values of $\Gamma _0$ with $K _{0} = 0.6 D^{-1}$.
The vertical dashed line on (d) corresponds to the value of $ \omega _c$ taken from  (a) and (b).
Horizontal lines indicate the refraction angles of the beams for the considered values of $\Gamma _0$. }
\label{FIG_Distribution_MANY}
\end{figure}

Now we consider the propagation of a monochromatic Gaussian light beam of
frequency $\omega _{c}$
\begin{equation}
E(z, \rho, t)=E_0 \exp \left[ -\frac{(z-z_{0})^{2}}{%
2z_{w}^{2}}\right] e^ {-i(K_{0}z + k_{\rho} \rho)} e^{-i\omega_{c}t},  \label{GaussBeamEq}
\end{equation}%
where $z_{w}$ is the beam spatial width. The beam propagates at an oblique angle to
the structure, that is set by $K_{0}$. In our simulations we take $z=0$, $%
z_{w}=12\times D$, and $\omega _{c}=0.95\omega _{X}$. The wave vector component $%
K_{0}$ is taken as $K_{0}D=0.6$. To model the propagation of light in the $\rho z
$ plane of the structure, we use the transfer matrix technique adapted for
the new geometry.
We check the accuracy of this numerical procedure in
limiting cases by analytical calculations realised in the effective photonic
mass approximation using the expressions~\eqref{PolEffMasses} for the effective mass tensor components in the vicinity of the saddle point.

Figure~\ref{FIG_Distribution_MANY} demonstrates the light beam
propagation in the $\rho z$ plane of the structure without [Fig.~\ref{FIG_Distribution_MANY}(a)] and with [Fig.~\ref{FIG_Distribution_MANY}(b)]
embedded QWs in the regime of a high radiative decay rate $\hbar \Gamma _{0}=15\,\text{\rm meV}$.
We considered the model RHMM of $30\times D$ width limited by vacuum on both sides.

One can see from Figs.~\ref{FIG_Distribution_MANY} (a) and~\ref{FIG_Distribution_MANY}(b) that the light beam undergoes the negative refraction  in the considered geometry.
Moreover, since the absolute value of the effective mass in the $z$-direction is one order of magnitude larger than the in-plane mass, the negative refraction appears to be very strong.
Clearly, the advantage of polaritonic RHMM over dielectric PC structures is in the suitability for the external
control of the refraction angle in a range of several degrees that is achieved just by tuning
the value of $\Gamma _{0}$.
This tuning can be done, \mbox{\emph{e.~g.}} by application of the external bias (see the Appendix).
Figures~\ref{FIG_Distribution_MANY} (c) and~\ref{FIG_Distribution_MANY}(d) demonstrate the dependencies of the refraction angle on $\Gamma _{0}$ (c) for the fixed values of $\omega_c $ and on $\omega_c $ (d) for the fixed values of~$\Gamma _{0}$.
One can see that the absolute value of the
refraction angle decreases with the increase of $\Gamma _{0}$. This tendency
is maintained as long as the frequency of the beam $\omega _{c}$ is less
than $\omega _{0}$. If this condition is violated, some values of $k_{\rho }$
in the vicinity of the first BZ center become forbidden, which affects the
shape and angular dispersion of the beam.

We also note that the parameter $\Gamma _{0}$ significantly affects the
spread of the optical beam. Comparing Figs.~\ref{FIG_Distribution_MANY} (a)
and~\ref{FIG_Distribution_MANY}(b), it can be concluded that the increase of $\Gamma _{0}$ up to a
certain limit reduces the light beam blurring. This is also correct only in the
limit of $\omega _{c}<\omega _{0}$. Finally, we want to mention that Figs.~%
\ref{FIG_Distribution_MANY} (a) and~\ref{FIG_Distribution_MANY}(b) also illustrate qualitatively the
influence of $\Gamma _{0}$ on the transmission properties of RHMMs. The
variation of transmittivity affects interference patterns in the vicinity of
the surfaces of the considered structure.

\section{Conclusions}
We have considered a planar RHMM based on a modified Bragg mirror with embedded periodically arranged QWs.
The optical properties of this RHMM are tunable by changing the radiative decay rate of embedded quantum wells.
The latter can be done by application of external electric and magnetic fields due to their strong influence on the exciton oscillator strength (see the Appendix).
This enables one to control the group velocity and propagation direction of light as well as its spatial distribution.

This work was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic
Research Grants No. 16-32-60104, No. 15-59-30406, and No. 15-52-52001, by grant
of President of Russian Federation for state support of young Russian
scientists No. MK-8031.2016.2, by the Russian Ministry of Education and
Science state tasks No. 2014/13, 16.440.2014/K and by the EPSRC Hybrid
Polaritonics Programme grant.

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