845 research outputs found

    Investigating the learning potential of the Second Quantum Revolution: development of an approach for secondary school students

    Get PDF
    In recent years we have witnessed important changes: the Second Quantum Revolution is in the spotlight of many countries, and it is creating a new generation of technologies. To unlock the potential of the Second Quantum Revolution, several countries have launched strategic plans and research programs that finance and set the pace of research and development of these new technologies (like the Quantum Flagship, the National Quantum Initiative Act and so on). The increasing pace of technological changes is also challenging science education and institutional systems, requiring them to help to prepare new generations of experts. This work is placed within physics education research and contributes to the challenge by developing an approach and a course about the Second Quantum Revolution. The aims are to promote quantum literacy and, in particular, to value from a cultural and educational perspective the Second Revolution. The dissertation is articulated in two parts. In the first, we unpack the Second Quantum Revolution from a cultural perspective and shed light on the main revolutionary aspects that are elevated to the rank of principles implemented in the design of a course for secondary school students, prospective and in-service teachers. The design process and the educational reconstruction of the activities are presented as well as the results of a pilot study conducted to investigate the impact of the approach on students' understanding and to gather feedback to refine and improve the instructional materials. The second part consists of the exploration of the Second Quantum Revolution as a context to introduce some basic concepts of quantum physics. We present the results of an implementation with secondary school students to investigate if and to what extent external representations could play any role to promote students’ understanding and acceptance of quantum physics as a personal reliable description of the world

    (b2023 to 2014) The UNBELIEVABLE similarities between the ideas of some people (2006-2016) and my ideas (2002-2008) in physics (quantum mechanics, cosmology), cognitive neuroscience, philosophy of mind, and philosophy (this manuscript would require a REVOLUTION in international academy environment!)

    Get PDF
    (b2023 to 2014) The UNBELIEVABLE similarities between the ideas of some people (2006-2016) and my ideas (2002-2008) in physics (quantum mechanics, cosmology), cognitive neuroscience, philosophy of mind, and philosophy (this manuscript would require a REVOLUTION in international academy environment!

    SuperCDMS HVeV Run 2 Low-Mass Dark Matter Search, Highly Multiplexed Phonon-Mediated Particle Detector with Kinetic Inductance Detector, and the Blackbody Radiation in Cryogenic Experiments

    Get PDF
    There is ample evidence of dark matter (DM), a phenomenon responsible for ≈ 85% of the matter content of the Universe that cannot be explained by the Standard Model (SM). One of the most compelling hypotheses is that DM consists of beyond-SM particle(s) that are nonluminous and nonbaryonic. So far, numerous efforts have been made to search for particle DM, and yet none has yielded an unambiguous observation of DM particles. We present in Chapter 2 the SuperCDMS HVeV Run 2 experiment, where we search for DM in the mass ranges of 0.5--10⁴ MeV/c² for the electron-recoil DM and 1.2--50 eV/c² for the dark photon and the Axion-like particle (ALP). SuperCDMS utilizes cryogenic crystals as detectors to search for DM interaction with the crystal atoms. The interaction is detected in the form of recoil energy mediated by phonons. In the HVeV project, we look for electron recoil, where we enhance the signal by the Neganov-Trofimov-Luke effect under high-voltage biases. The technique enabled us to detect quantized e⁻h⁺ creation at a 3% ionization energy resolution. Our work is the first DM search analysis considering charge trapping and impact ionization effects for solid-state detectors. We report our results as upper limits for the assumed particle models as functions of DM mass. Our results exclude the DM-electron scattering cross section, the dark photon kinetic mixing parameter, and the ALP axioelectric coupling above 8.4 x 10⁻³⁴ cm², 3.3 x 10⁻¹⁴, and 1.0 x 10⁻⁹, respectively. Currently every SuperCDMS detector is equipped with a few phonon sensors based on the transition-edge sensor (TES) technology. In order to improve phonon-mediated particle detectors' background rejection performance, we are developing highly multiplexed detectors utilizing kinetic inductance detectors (KIDs) as phonon sensors. This work is detailed in chapter 3 and chapter 4. We have improved our previous KID and readout line designs, which enabled us to produce our first ø3" detector with 80 phonon sensors. The detector yielded a frequency placement accuracy of 0.07%, indicating our capability of implementing hundreds of phonon sensors in a typical SuperCDMS-style detector. We detail our fabrication technique for simultaneously employing Al and Nb for the KID circuit. We explain our signal model that includes extracting the RF signal, calibrating the RF signal into pair-breaking energy, and then the pulse detection. We summarize our noise condition and develop models for different noise sources. We combine the signal and the noise models to be an energy resolution model for KID-based phonon-mediated detectors. From this model, we propose strategies to further improve future detectors' energy resolution and introduce our ongoing implementations. Blackbody (BB) radiation is one of the plausible background sources responsible for the low-energy background currently preventing low-threshold DM experiments to search for lower DM mass ranges. In Chapter 5, we present our study for such background for cryogenic experiments. We have developed physical models and, based on the models, simulation tools for BB radiation propagation as photons or waves. We have also developed a theoretical model for BB photons' interaction with semiconductor impurities, which is one of the possible channels for generating the leakage current background in SuperCDMS-style detectors. We have planned for an experiment to calibrate our simulation and leakage current generation model. For the experiment, we have developed a specialized ``mesh TES'' photon detector inspired by cosmic microwave background experiments. We present its sensitivity model, the radiation source developed for the calibration, and the general plan of the experiment.</p

    Anime Studies: media-specific approaches to neon genesis evangelion

    Get PDF
    Anime Studies: Media-Specific Approaches to Neon Genesis Evangelion aims at advancing the study of anime, understood as largely TV-based genre fiction rendered in cel, or cel-look, animation with a strong affinity to participatory cultures and media convergence. Making Neon Genesis Evangelion (Shin Seiki Evangerion, 1995-96) its central case and nodal point, this volumen forground anime as a media with clearly recognizable aesthetic properties, (sub)cultural affordances and situated discourses

    NEGOTIATING THE SACRED: UNDERSTANDING IMPACTS TO IKS AND ITEK FROM USE OF REMOTE SENSING AND GIS TECHNOLOGIES WITHIN TRIBAL LANDSCAPES

    Get PDF
    How we see the world and ourselves in relation to it is largely achieved by the lens we are looking through and associated experiences within this relationship. This is additionally true when considering the acknowledged fact that Indigenous Knowledges are derived from natural and cultural sources and these assist in constituting the cultural identities of those Peoples associated with these sources. Presently there is a hunger for access and use of Indigenous Knowledges (IK) as never before seen in public ways, through a national Call for collaborative means to apply these knowledges to such as the issues we globally face as a result of Climate Change. What are Indigenous Knowledges? How are they created? Who holds these and can utilize them in public ways? These questions are an embedded aspect of this Call that requires attention. Further, what impacts exist that benefit, but also challenge, the endeavor to utilize Indigenous Knowledges outside local areas where they are derived? What of these sacred ways of knowing are being negotiated to attain their use? Five areas of concern were identified in response to these questions through application of An Indigenous Research Way (AIRW), a novel continuous improvement model for implementing Indigenous Research Methodologies and Methods, within research design and practice. Synthesizing these concerns into three themes, Education, Technology, and Tribal Leader Decision-Making, awareness was revealed of these as first level and gateway impacts. Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing operationalizes Indigenous worldviews about relationality and this as central to how Indigenous Knowledges Systems (IKS) are created and in turn create Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledges (ITEK). Understanding how we “see” ourselves in relation to this process is imperative. A burgeoning method for seeing landscapes, and they as sources of IK, is through use of remote sensing and Geographical Information Systems (GIS). This Phase I study, through a Kin-based Case Study and mixed-methods approach, sought to understand impacts to IKS and ITEK from use of these technologies within tribal landscapes through review and assessment of 73 ESRI tribal GIS public StoryMap projects, led by tribal practitioners, accomplished in 2017 - 2021. Assessment provides there exists an assumption that identifying as being Indigenous includes being a holder of cultural knowledges and that these are utilized at will and regularly. The data troubles this assumption with respect to tribal individuals trained as practitioners of these technologies and their use of ITEK then provided through public digital media. Impacts to IKS and ITEK reveal enhancements and also replacement of the “seeing” accomplished by Indigenous People through technological means and the public perceptions of their cultural lifeways and persona of being Holders of Indigenous Knowledges. These impacts are broad in their implications as they attend to not only understandings of past and present access to ITEK but also future applications that brings the conversation into the realms of understanding being Indigenous off-earth

    British Anti-Slavery, Trade, and Nascent Colonialism on the Sierra Leone Peninsula, c. 1860 – 1960

    Get PDF
    This dissertation reveals local responses to, and influences on the nascent British colonialism, imperial policies, and trade networks at Regent, a liberated African village on the Sierra Leone peninsula during the colonial period (circa 1860 to 1960) through the study of written and archaeological data. It explores how Africans liberated from slave ships and barracoons, following the British abolition of the slave trade and therefore of varying cultural and ethnic backgrounds, established new settlements and actively changed or maintained their household spatial practices, socio-economic strategies, as well as material use and discard patterns in this foreign diasporic setting. Fieldwork for this study consisted of two years of archival research in Freetown and archaeological investigations, which included settlement-wide surveys and the horizontal excavations of two house loci at Regent Village known to contain stratified domestic deposits dating to the colonial period. I use these written records and archaeological assemblages to show how these diverse Africans adapted to this foreign diasporic environment focusing on varied house structures and the mundane things they made, bought, used, and discarded. The contextual and comparative analyses of architectural remains and artifact distributions, as well as the presence and absence of certain kinds of artifact classes, facilitate the reconstruction of material culture patterning and household economic differences. Results of the analyses indicate emerging elites in the two excavated house loci, while the settlement-wide survey data reveal that some liberated Africans and their descendants lived in foreign-style houses that were neither European nor local, used many imported materials and retailed them, obtained Western education and went to church, but never became “British.” I employ a theoretical framework that connects colonial entanglements, cross-cultural exchange, and identity formation
    corecore