Unconditional preparation of entanglement between atoms in cascaded optical cavities

We propose a scheme to unconditionally entangle the internal states of atoms trapped in separate high finesse optical cavities. The scheme uses the technique of quantum reservoir engineering in a cascaded cavity QED setting, and for ideal (lossless) coupling between the cavities generates an entangled pure state. Highly entangled states are also shown to be possible for realizable cavity QED parameters and with nonideal coupling.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Physical Revie

Someone Else\u27s Life: Columns from Insider Iowa

Someone Else\u27s Life incorporates a series of columns I wrote for the local online news publication Insider Iowa. While working on a memoir, I came to the realization that I had grown up feeling alienated from the community I lived in. I wasn\u27t even sure I understood what community meant. In these short essays, I sought to pin down that definition, and highlight stories that arose out of this newfound sense of community. I have a fledgling theory that the lack of a long sordid history on this continent is a boon to the American psyche. That our rootlessness has become detrimental to the way we approach the future: of our families, our nation, our planet, our species. Most of us don\u27t have the sins of our father to atone for or years of oppression to rise up from underneath. On the other hand, I also found that without the weight of history, it\u27s easier to live in the promise of each new day and make one\u27s own way in the world. The sometimes conflicting concepts of identity, community, and heredity, are what weave this collection, and what weave all of our lives, together

School and Human Service Collaboration: A Needs Assessment

Across America schools and human service organizations have become more aware of the difficulty in providing for the needs of families and children alone. There is a growing need for organizations to work together to effectively provide appropriate services. Recently, collaboration has received a great deal of attention as a necessary strategy in working together. This study explores the perceived need for a school and human service collaboration in Dakota County, Minnesota, that would service families and children currently receiving services from the Intra-Dakota Educational Alternative (IDEA) program. A needs assessment was conducted through a review of the literature and qualitative interviews of key informants who work in Dakota County schools and human services. The major themes explored in the interviews include: the unmet needs of families and children in the target population; the need for a collaboration among IDEA and Dakota County human service organizations; and, what a collaborative of this nature could look like in terms of structure and functioning. A framework for a collaborative initiative in Dakota County has been developed based on the research. This framework is presented at the conclusion of the study

Identifying Sources of Differential Item Functioning on an English Language Proficiency Assessment

This paper examines the degree of DIF detected on an English language proficiency assessment and the extent to which item characteristics may be identified as sources of DIF for Vietnamese- and Spanish-speaking students. Logistic regression was used to determine the extent of DIF for each item. Of the 45 items individually analyzed, 27 items were flagged for evidence of containing uniform or nonuniform DIF, the majority of which favored Vietnamese-speaking students. Effect sizes reflecting the magnitude of DIF for each item were correlated with item characteristics to determine the extent that item characteristics could explain variability in proficiency. Both multisyllabic words and unique-to-English sounds were significantly correlated with effect size, indicating these variables may partially explain the difference in item proficiency between language groups