Abstract Examples

(These two abstracts do not cover every possible field or expectation; they are general examples.)

HUMANITIES: This abstract comes from a paper written about Shakespeare's The Tempest and nuclear disarmament:

The humanitarian discourse used to ban indiscriminate weapons has colonial undertones, suggesting that “civilized nations” abstain from “barbaric” ways of killing. This same “standard of civilization” language was used to justify conducting nuclear testing in Pacific communities. Portraying Pacific peoples as “primitive” and nuclear weapons as evidence of a country’s “civilization,” colonialism and nuclear testing were intricately intertwined. This chapter uses Shakespeare’s The Tempest to demonstrate how a demeaning “tropical island imaginary” shaped colonizers’ interactions with Pacific peoples. But in the character of Caliban, one sees possibilities of “talking back” to the oppressor. In pursuing nuclear disarmament, Pacific intellectuals, diplomats and advocates have flipped the “standard of civilization” script. The chapter questions the territorialist assumptions of international relations (IR), exploring the contributions of post-colonial theory.

Bolton, M. B. "Act 4: Caliban and the Nuclear Ban." Imagining Disarmament, Enchanting International Relations, Palgrave Pivot, 26 June 2019, pp. 85–119. SpringerNature, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17716-4_4.

SCIENCES: This abstract comes from an older paper written about the conductivity of free silver nanowires:

Free silver nanowires were produced in aqueous electrolyte by a novel chemical reaction. Their diameters are about 27 nm, the lengths range up to more than 70 μm, yielding extreme length to thickness-ratios up to 2500. Their structure was identified by TEM analysis (SAED) and HRTEM to consist of a lattice aligned bundle of five monocrystalline rods of triangular cross-section forming an almost regular pentagonal cross-section. It is demonstrated that, for application purposes, single free nanowires can be mounted between contact areas. This manipulation is enabled by observing the nanowires in real time at atmosphere by Zsigmondy-Siedentopf farfield darkfield microscopy. Experimental results are presented concerning electrical dc-conductivity and optical plasmon polariton excitation, the latter obtained from a single free wire without substrate and a single wire deposited on quartz glass. We also report about a present research cooperation with the Graz group of Aussenegg and Krenn which is devoted to investigate plasmon propagation in our Ag nanowires and to prove application possibilities as information guide fibers – in analogy to optical fibers—which may be integrated into micro- and nanoelectronic circuits.