Improving student uptake and understanding of feedback through a dialogue model of assessment

Through the use of questionnaires, focus groups and a pilot study, this research examines student perception of assessment feedback and whether a dialogue model of assessment can aid in improving this perception. The findings of the study are that the dialogue model did improve student perception. It also identified the following recommendations for consideration: Recommendation 1: While a QE approach could be taken where a minimum standard of feedback is determined at University level, the researchers feel this might be restrictive and is better left to subject groups to determine. This minimum level can then be used as a QA check by internal moderators and at Quality Review events. It will be important to ensure that if feedback falls below this subject-determined minimum level that action is taken within the group to bring feedback up to the standard required. Recommendation 2: It should be written into the feedback policy that students have a right to a meeting to discuss feedback. This needs to be clearly expressed to ensure students recognize that this is not an opportunity to negotiate grades (as the researchers have personally experienced) and given in the spirit of helping the student develop. The researchers believe that as educators we should see the value in such meetings and make time for them. If good, constructive, clear feedback is given at the time of the assessment then there will be very few students who need to take up this opportunity. Recommendation 3: Within programme documentation when generic transferable skills are discussed there should be a requirement to show where the team are developing student understanding of the assessment process. Recommendation 4: Staff should be encouraged to include their marking scheme with the assessment brief. Recommendation 5: Monitor the result of the new assessment strategy in terms of student attainment and perception about the fairness of assessment. In particular identify how many modules have gone to single units of assessment and where this happens how students are supported with feedforward. Recommendation 6: Identify is there is a University standard expectation for particular types of assessment instrument at each level. This would help us to communicate lecturer expectations to students

Studies of encapsulant materials for terrestrial solar-cell arrays

Study 1 of this contract is entitled ""Evaluation of World Experience and Properties of Materials for Encapsulation of Terrestrial Solar-Cell Arrays.'' The approach of this study is to review and analyze world experience and to compile data on properties of encapsulants for photovoltaic cells and for related applications. The objective of the effort is to recommend candidate materials and processes for encapsulating terrestrial photovoltaic arrays at low cost for a service life greater than 20 years. The objectives of Study 2, ""Definition of Encapsulant Service Environments and Test Conditions,'' are to develop the climatic/environmental data required to define the frequency and duration of detrimental environmental conditions in a 20-year array lifetime and to develop a corresponding test schedule for encapsulant systems

Optimisation of the Photostimulated Luminescence (PSL) Tests to Detect Irradiated Dietary Supplements: Experimental Studies of Pre-Concentration, Depletion Rate Analysis and Multiwavelength PSL Analysis

No abstract available

Vector valued Hardy spaces

The Hardy space $H^{p}$ of vector valued analytic functions in tube domains in $\mathbb{C}^{n}$ and with values in Banach space are defined. Vector valued analytic functions in tube domains in $\mathbb{C}^{n}$ with values in Hilbert space and which have vector valued tempered distributions as boundary value are proved to be in $H^{p}$ corresponding to Hilbert space if the boundary value is in $L^{p}$ with values in Hilbert space. A Poisson integral representation for such vector valued analytic functions is obtained.Comment: 21 page

Single photon absorption by a single quantum emitter

We show that a three-level lambda quantum emitter with equal spontaneous emission rates on both optically active transitions can absorb an incident light field with a probability approaching unity, provided that the focused light profile matches that of the emitter dipole emission pattern. Even with realistic focusing geometries, our results could find applications in long-distance entanglement of spin qubits.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Atom detection in a two-mode optical cavity with intermediate coupling: Autocorrelation studies

We use an optical cavity in the regime of intermediate coupling between atom and cavity mode to detect single moving atoms. Degenerate polarization modes allow excitation of the atoms in one mode and collection of spontaneous emission in the other, while keeping separate the two sources of light; we obtain a higher confidence and efficiency of detection by adding cavity-enhanced Faraday rotation. Both methods greatly benefit from coincidence detection of photons, attaining fidelities in excess of 99% in less than 1 microsecond. Detailed studies of the second-order intensity autocorrelation function of light from the signal mode reveal evidence of antibunched photon emissions and the dynamics of single-atom transits.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.

Multipartite W states for chains of atoms conveyed through an optical cavity

We propose and work out a scheme to generate the entangled W states for a chain of N four-level atoms which are transported through an optical cavity by means of an optical lattice. This scheme is based on the combined laser-cavity mediated interaction between distant and equally separated atoms and works in a completely deterministic way for qubits encoded by two hyperfine levels of the atoms. Only two parameters, namely the distance between the atoms and the velocity of the chain, determine the effective interaction among the atoms and, therefore, the degree of entanglement that is obtained for the overall chain of N qubits. In particular, we work out the parameter regions for which the W states are generated most reliably for chains of N = 2,3,4 and 5 atoms. In addition, we analyze the sensitivity in the formation of entanglement for such chains of qubits due to uncertainties produced by the oscillations of atoms in optical lattices.Comment: 12 pages, revised version accepted in PR

From quantum feedback to probabilistic error correction: Manipulation of quantum beats in cavity QED

It is shown how to implement quantum feedback and probabilistic error correction in an open quantum system consisting of a single atom, with ground- and excited-state Zeeman structure, in a driven two-mode optical cavity. The ground state superposition is manipulated and controlled through conditional measurements and external fields, which shield the coherence and correct quantum errors. Modeling of an experimentally realistic situation demonstrates the robustness of the proposal for realization in the laboratory

The three-site Bose-Hubbard model subject to atom losses: the boson-pair dissipation channel and failure of the mean-field approach

We employ the perturbation series expansion for derivation of the reduced master equations for the three-site Bose-Hubbard model subject to strong atom losses from the central site. The model describes a condensate trapped in a triple-well potential subject to externally controlled removal of atoms. We find that the $\pi$-phase state of the coherent superposition between the side wells decays via two dissipation channels, the single-boson channel (similar to the externally applied dissipation) and the boson-pair channel. The quantum derivation is compared to the classical adiabatic elimination within the mean-field approximation. We find that the boson-pair dissipation channel is not captured by the mean-field model, whereas the single-boson channel is described by it. Moreover, there is a matching condition between the zero-point energy bias of the side wells and the nonlinear interaction parameter which separates the regions where either the single-boson or the boson-pair dissipation channel dominate. Our results indicate that the $M$-site Bose-Hubbard models, for $M>2$, subject to atom losses may require an analysis which goes beyond the usual mean-field approximation for correct description of their dissipative features. This is an important result in view of the recent experimental works on the single site addressability of condensates trapped in optical lattices.Comment: 9 pages; 3 figures in color; submitted to PR

Nonlinear photon transport in a semiconductor waveguide-cavity system containing a single quantum dot: Anharmonic cavity-QED regime

We present a semiconductor master equation technique to study the input/output characteristics of coherent photon transport in a semiconductor waveguide-cavity system containing a single quantum dot. We use this approach to investigate the effects of photon propagation and anharmonic cavity-QED for various dot-cavity interaction strengths, including weakly-coupled, intermediately-coupled, and strongly-coupled regimes. We demonstrate that for mean photon numbers much less than 0.1, the commonly adopted weak excitation (single quantum) approximation breaks down, even in the weak coupling regime. As a measure of the anharmonic multiphoton-correlations, we compute the Fano factor and the correlation error associated with making a semiclassical approximation. We also explore the role of electron--acoustic-phonon scattering and find that phonon-mediated scattering plays a qualitatively important role on the light propagation characteristics. As an application of the theory, we simulate a conditional phase gate at a phonon bath temperature of $20$K in the strong coupling regime.Comment: To appear in PR