Giant optical anisotropy in a single InAs quantum dot in a very dilute quantum-dot ensemble

We present the experimental evidence of giant optical anisotropy in single InAs quantum dots. Polarization-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy reveals a linear polarization ratio with huge fluctuations, from one quantum dot to another, in sign and in magnitude with absolute values up to 82%. Systematic measurements on hundreds of quantum dots coming from two different laboratories demonstrate that the giant optical anisotropy is an intrinsic feature of dilute quantum-dot arrays.Comment: submitted to Applied Physics Letter

A brief social skills intervention and its effect on elementary students’ social behaviors

Student social skill improvement interventions are primarily conducted at the school site. Students also need social skills to navigate out-of-school time, and more focus on the elementary level is advised. Successful interventions are developmentally appropriate for the age group and focus on skill building. In this study, puppetry was the developmentally appropriate strategy used to teach a social skills-building curriculum. Trained volunteers presented four short, weekly lessons on positive social skill development to elementary students attending their district’s afterschool program. Pre-post intervention, student social skill knowledge scores significantly improved, and afterschool teachers reported significant decreases in student emotional problems and hyperactivity scores as well as a significant increase in pro-social behavior scores. Interestingly, conduct problem scores improved but not significantly, and peer problem scores significantly increased. Afterschool programming may be a promising initial or bridging step towards fully integrating school-based elementary-level social skill improvement interventions into community-based settings and organizations

Crowdfunding Among Event Entrepreneurs: A Conceptual Paper

This paper aims to uncover the benefits of crowdfunding among Event Entrepreneurs in Malaysia. The study reviews literature on the definition, discussion and its revolution related to capital -raising, networking, investment, and crowdfunding among Event Entrepreneurs. The method used for this paper is based on literature reviews from journal articles, conference proceedings, newspaper, books and internet search related to this research area. The conceptual framework is recommended in the end of the paper as it allows reader to understand how the benefits will affects towards crowdfunding among Event Entrepreneurs. Hence, it will provide more research interest in crowdfunding in the future.     Keywords: crowdfunding, event, event crowdfundin

Polarization angle accuracy for future CMB experiments. The COSMOCal project and its prototype in the 1mm band

The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation offers a unique window into the early Universe, facilitating precise examinations of fundamental cosmological theories. However, the quest for detecting B-modes in the CMB, predicted by theoretical models of inflation, faces substantial challenges in terms of calibration and foreground modeling. The COSMOCal (COsmic Survey of Millimeter wavelengths Objects for CMB experiments Calibration) project aims at enhancing the accuracy of the absolute calibration of the polarization angle $\psi$ of current and future CMB experiments. The concept includes the build of a very well known artificial source emitting in the frequency range [20-350] GHz that would act as an absolute calibrator for several polarization facilities on Earth. A feasibility study to place the artificial source in geostationary orbit, in the far field for all the telescopes on Earth, is ongoing. In the meanwhile ongoing hardware work is dedicated to build a prototype to test the technology, the precision and the stability of the polarization recovering in the 1 mm band (220-300 GHz). High-resolution experiments as the NIKA2 camera at the IRAM 30m telescope will be deployed for such use. Once carefully calibrated ($\Delta\psi$ < 0.1 degrees) it will be used to observe astrophysical sources such as the Crab nebula, which is the best candidate in the sky for the absolute calibration of CMB experiments.Comment: to appear in Proc. of the mm Universe 2023 conference, Grenoble (France), June 2023, published by F. Mayet et al. (Eds), EPJ Web of conferences, EDP Science

Expression analysis onto microarrays of randomly selected cDNA clones highlights HOXB13 as a marker of human prostate cancer

In a strategy aimed at identifying novel markers of human prostate cancer, we performed expression analysis using microarrays of clones randomly selected from a cDNA library prepared from the LNCaP prostate cancer cell line. Comparisons of expression profiles in primary human prostate cancer, adjacent normal prostate tissue, and a selection of other (nonprostate) normal human tissues, led to the identification of a set of clones that were judged as the best candidate markers of normal and/or malignant prostate tissue. DNA sequencing of the selected clones revealed that they included 10 genes that had previously been established as prostate markers: NKX3.1, KLK2, KLK3 (PSA), FOLH1 (PSMA), STEAP2, PSGR, PRAC, RDH11, Prostein and FASN. Following analysis of the expression patterns of all selected and sequenced genes through interrogation of SAGE databases, a further three genes from our clone set, HOXB13, SPON2 and NCAM2, emerged as additional candidate markers of human prostate cancer. Quantitative RT–PCR demonstrated the specificity of expression of HOXB13 in prostate tissue and revealed its ubiquitous expression in a series of 37 primary prostate cancers and 20 normal prostates. These results demonstrate the utility of this expression-microarray approach in hunting for new markers of individual human cancer types

The GRANDMA network in preparation for the fourth gravitational-wave observing run

GRANDMA is a world-wide collaboration with the primary scientific goal ofstudying gravitational-wave sources, discovering their electromagneticcounterparts and characterizing their emission. GRANDMA involves astronomers,astrophysicists, gravitational-wave physicists, and theorists. GRANDMA is now atruly global network of telescopes, with (so far) 30 telescopes in bothhemispheres. It incorporates a citizen science programme (Kilonova-Catcher)which constitutes an opportunity to spread the interest in time-domainastronomy. The telescope network is an heterogeneous set of already-existingobserving facilities that operate coordinated as a single observatory. Withinthe network there are wide-field imagers that can observe large areas of thesky to search for optical counterparts, narrow-field instruments that dotargeted searches within a predefined list of host-galaxy candidates, andlarger telescopes that are devoted to characterization and follow-up of theidentified counterparts. Here we present an overview of GRANDMA after the thirdobserving run of the LIGO/VIRGO gravitational-wave observatories in $2019-2020$and its ongoing preparation for the forthcoming fourth observational campaign(O4). Additionally, we review the potential of GRANDMA for the discovery andfollow-up of other types of astronomical transients.<br

Polarization angle accuracy for future CMB experiments

The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation offers a unique window into the early Universe, facilitating precise examinations of fundamental cosmological theories. However, the quest for detecting B-modes in the CMB, predicted by theoretical models of inflation, faces substantial challenges in terms of calibration and foreground modeling. The COSMOCal (COsmic Survey of Millimeter wavelengths Objects for CMB experiments Calibration) project aims at enhancing the accuracy of the absolute calibration of the polarization angle ψ of current and future CMB experiments. The concept includes the build of a very well known artificial source emitting in the frequency range [20-350] GHz that would act as an absolute calibrator for several polarization facilities on Earth. A feasibility study to place the artificial source in geostationary orbit, in the far field for all the telescopes on Earth, is ongoing. In the meanwhile ongoing hardware work is dedicated to build a prototype to test the technology, the precision and the stability of the polarization recovering in the 1 mm band (220-300 GHz). High-resolution experiments as the NIKA2 camera at the IRAM 30m telescope will be deployed for such use. Once carefully calibrated (Δψ < 0.1◦) it will be used to observe astrophysical sources such as the Crab nebula, which is the best candidate in the sky for the absolute calibration of CMB experiments

The GRANDMA network in preparation for the fourth gravitational-wave observing run

GRANDMA is a world-wide collaboration with the primary scientific goal of studying gravitational-wave sources, discovering their electromagnetic counterparts and characterizing their emission. GRANDMA involves astronomers, astrophysicists, gravitational-wave physicists, and theorists. GRANDMA is now a truly global network of telescopes, with (so far) 30 telescopes in both hemispheres. It incorporates a citizen science programme (Kilonova-Catcher) which constitutes an opportunity to spread the interest in time-domain astronomy. The telescope network is an heterogeneous set of already-existing observing facilities that operate coordinated as a single observatory. Within the network there are wide-field imagers that can observe large areas of the sky to search for optical counterparts, narrow-field instruments that do targeted searches within a predefined list of host-galaxy candidates, and larger telescopes that are devoted to characterization and follow-up of the identified counterparts. Here we present an overview of GRANDMA after the third observing run of the LIGO/VIRGO gravitational-wave observatories in 2019-2020 and its ongoing preparation for the forthcoming fourth observational campaign (O4). Additionally, we review the potential of GRANDMA for the discovery and follow-up of other types of astronomical transients