“We Live Subject to their Orders”: A Three-Province survey of Forced Child Labor in Uzbekistan’s 2008 Cotton Harvest

This report highlights the continued use of forced child labor in the cotton industry in Uzbekistan in the fall 2008 harvest. While international pressure from retailers and consumers has had some effect in curbing forced child labor in the production of cotton in Uzbekistan, the practice is still pervasive

Samarkand complex setup for investigation of cosmic ray variation in the energy range of 7 10 (9) - 10 (15) eV

The Samarkand complex setup is aimed at the study of cosmic ray variations in a wide energy range from 7 billion eV (which corresponds to the geomagnetic threshold in the region of Samarkand) up to approx 10 to the 15th power to 10 to the 16th power eV. The setup consists of four 6-counter sections of neutron supermonitor with counters SNM-15 and 48 scintillator detectors (1 sq m each) placed under and above the supermonitor. The effective area of the setup for recording neutrons and muons is 24 sq m. The setup can register time variations of the following cosmic ray components: (1) the total neutron counting rate, (2) counting rates for neutrons of different multiplicity, (3) soft-muon fluxes, (4) hard-muon fluxes at various zenith and azimuth angles, (5) electron-photon component, (6) extensive air showers (EAS) induced by primary particles in a wide energy range and accompanied or not accompanied by muons and neutrons

A brief note on Early Abbasid stucco decoration. Madinat al-Far and the first Friday Mosque of Isfahan

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how an in-depth study of the stucco decoration could be useful in dating different phases of the Early Abbasid period in the absence of other precise archaeological evidence. Two case studies are presented: the residence of Madinat al-Far in Syria and the Early Abbasid Mosque of Iṣfahān in Iran

Interference of spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensates

Interference of atomic Bose-Einstein condensates, observed in free expansion experiments, is a basic characteristic of their quantum nature. The ability to produce synthetic spin-orbit coupling in Bose-Einstein condensates has recently opened a new research field. Here we theoretically describe interference of two noninteracting spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensates in an external synthetic magnetic field. We demonstrate that the spin-orbit and the Zeeman couplings strongly influence the interference pattern determined by the angle between the spins of the condensates, as can be seen in time-of-flight experiments. We show that a quantum backflow, being a subtle feature of the interference, is, nevertheless, robust against the spin-orbit coupling and applied synthetic magnetic field.Comment: published versio

Study of the energy spectrum of primary cosmic rays: EAS size fluctuations at a fixed primary energy

During the initial period of the Samarkand EAS array operations the showers were selected on the basis of charged-particle flux density, and during the subsequent periods the showers were selected on the basis of Cerenkov light flux density. This procedure made it possible to measure the shower energy, to estimate the EAS size fluctuations at a fixed primary energy, and to experimentally obtain the scaling factor K(Ne, Eo) from the EAS size spectrum to the primary energy spectrum. Six scintillators of area S = 2 sq m each were added to the array. The fluctuations of EAS sizes in the showers of fixed primary energies and the scaling factors K(Ne, Eo) were inferred from the data obtained. The showers with zenith angles 30 deg were selected. The EAS axis positions were inferred from the amplitude data of the scintillators. The primary energy Eo was determined by the method of least squares for the known EAS axis position using the data of the Cerenkov detector located at 80 to 150 m EAS axis. It is shown that the Cerenkov light flux fluctuations at 100 m from EAS axis, q sub 100, do not exceed 10% at a fixed EAS energy, so the parameter q sub 100 may be used to estimate the EAS-generating primary particle-energy