Fearless: Mike Altman

After participating in the 2011 Heston Internship in Uganda working in a community on clean water projects, Mike gained a new interest in Global Health. His interest grew and a few months ago he started an internship with charity: water, an organization working to bring access to clean water throughout the world in a way that attempts to break the traditional donation model. At charity: water, Mike is part of a greater group that is working to more closely connect people to specific water projects through financial transparency and innovative fundraising campaigns. [excerpt

Noise Correlations in one-dimensional systems of ultra-cold fermions

Time of flight images reflect the momentum distribution of the atoms in the trap, but the spatial noise in the image holds information on more subtle correlations. Using Bosonization, we study such noise correlations in generic one dimensional systems of ultra cold fermions. Specifically, we show how pairing as well as spin and charge density wave correlations may be identified and extracted from the time of flight images. These incipient orders manifest themselves as power law singularities in the noise correlations, that depend on the Luttinger parameters, which suggests a general experimental technique to obtain them.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. Added discussion on the visibility of noise correlation features for realistic condition

Fire extinguishant materials

Fire extinguishant composition comprising a mixture of a finely divided aluminum compound and alkali metal, stannous or plumbous halide is provided. Aluminum compound may be aluminum hydroxide, alumina or boehmite but preferably it is an alkali metal dawsonite. The metal halide may be an alkali metal, e.g. potassium iodide, bromide or chloride or stannous or plumbous iodide, bromide or chloride. Potassium iodide is preferred

Dynamic projection on Feshbach molecules: a probe of pairing and phase fluctuations

We describe and justify a simple model for the dynamics associated with rapid sweeps across a Feshbach resonance, from the atomic to the molecular side, in an ultra cold Fermi system. The model allows us to relate the observed molecule momentum distribution, including its dependence on the sweep rate, to equilibrium properties of the initial state. For initial state near resonance, we find that phase fluctuations sharply reduce the observed condensate fraction. Moreover, for very fast sweeps and low temperatures, we predict a surprising nonmonotonic dependence of the molecule condensate fraction on detuning, that is a direct signature of quantum phase fluctuations. The dependence of the total molecule number on sweep rate is found to be a sensitive probe of pairing in the initial state, whether condensed or not. Hence it can be utilized to establish the presence of a phase fluctuation induced `psuedogap' phase in these systems.Comment: Added reference

Career progress and career barriers: Women MBA graduates in Canada and the UK

This article explores the career progress of female MBA graduates in Canada and the UK and the nature of career barriers experienced in each context. Results suggest that while Canadian women have similar career profiles to men, women in the UK lag behind their male counterparts after graduation from the course. At the same time, UK women encounter more intractable career barriers in the form of negative attitudes and prejudice. A model of the ‘MBA effect’ is proposed in terms of how the qualification may impact on career barriers. This incorporates three different types of barriers which are seen to operate at the individual level (person centred barriers) and at the intermediate/organizational level (organizational culture and attitudes, corporate practices) as well as, at the macro level, the impact of legislative frameworks. Results from the UK and Canadian surveys are discussed in relation to this model and in the context of feminist theory and women in management literature

Cost-effective Sulphur Emission Reduction under Uncertainty

The problem of reducing SO2 emissions in Europe is considered. The costs of reduction are assumed to be uncertain and are modeled by a set of possible scenarios. A mean-variance model of the problem is formulated and a specialized computational procedure developed. The approach is applied to the transboundary air pollution model with real-world data

Understanding agriculture within the frameworks of cumulative cultural evolution, gene-culture co-evolution, and cultural niche construction

This is the author accepted manuscriptSince its emergence around 12,000 years ago, agriculture has transformed our species, other species, and the planet on which we all live. Here we argue that the emergence and impact of agriculture can be understood within new theoretical frameworks developing within the evolutionary human sciences. First, the improvement and diversification of agricultural knowledge, practices, and technology is a case of cumulative cultural evolution, with successive modifications accumulated over multiple generations to exceed what any single person could create alone. We discuss how the factors that permit, facilitate, and hinder cumulative cultural evolution might apply to agriculture. Second, agriculture is a prime example of gene-culture co-evolution, where culturally transmitted agricultural practices generate novel selection pressures for genetic evolution. While this point has traditionally been made for the human genome, we expand the concept to include genetic changes in domesticated plants and animals, both via traditional breeding and molecular breeding. Third, agriculture is a powerful niche-constructing activity that has extensively transformed the abiotic, biotic, and social environments. We examine how agricultural knowledge and practice shapes, and are shaped by, social norms and attitudes. We discuss recent biotechnology and associated molecular breeding techniques and present several case studies, including golden rice and stress resistance. Overall, we propose new insights into the co-evolution of human culture and plant genes and the unprecedented contribution of agricultural activities to the construction of unique agriculture-driven anthropogenic biomes