Optical preparation and measurement of atomic coherence at gigahertz bandwidth

We detail a method for the preparation of atomic coherence in a high density atomic medium, utilising a coherent preparation scheme of gigahertz bandwidth pulses. A numerical simulation of the preparation scheme is developed, and its efficiency in preparing coherent states is found to be close to unity at the entrance to the medium. The coherence is then measured non-invasively with a probe field.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

Model studies of fluctuations in the background for jets in heavy ion collisions

Jets produced in high energy heavy ion collisions are quenched by the production of the quark gluon plasma. Measurements of these jets are influenced by the methods used to suppress and subtract the large, fluctuating background and the assumptions inherent in these methods. We compare the measurements of the background in Pb+Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 2.76 TeV by the ALICE collaboration to calculations in TennGen (a data-driven random background generator) and PYTHIA Angantyr. The standard deviation of the energy in random cones in TennGen is approximately in agreement with the form predicted in the ALICE paper, with deviations of 1-6 $\%$. The standard deviation of energy in random cones in Angantyr exceeds the same predictions by approximately 40 $\%$. Deviations in both models can be explained by the assumption that the single particle $d^2N/dydp_T$ is a Gamma distribution in the derivation of the prediction. This indicates that model comparisons are potentially sensitive to the treatment of the background

Hand2Face: Automatic Synthesis and Recognition of Hand Over Face Occlusions

A person's face discloses important information about their affective state. Although there has been extensive research on recognition of facial expressions, the performance of existing approaches is challenged by facial occlusions. Facial occlusions are often treated as noise and discarded in recognition of affective states. However, hand over face occlusions can provide additional information for recognition of some affective states such as curiosity, frustration and boredom. One of the reasons that this problem has not gained attention is the lack of naturalistic occluded faces that contain hand over face occlusions as well as other types of occlusions. Traditional approaches for obtaining affective data are time demanding and expensive, which limits researchers in affective computing to work on small datasets. This limitation affects the generalizability of models and deprives researchers from taking advantage of recent advances in deep learning that have shown great success in many fields but require large volumes of data. In this paper, we first introduce a novel framework for synthesizing naturalistic facial occlusions from an initial dataset of non-occluded faces and separate images of hands, reducing the costly process of data collection and annotation. We then propose a model for facial occlusion type recognition to differentiate between hand over face occlusions and other types of occlusions such as scarves, hair, glasses and objects. Finally, we present a model to localize hand over face occlusions and identify the occluded regions of the face.Comment: Accepted to International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII), 201

Effective Instructional Design and Delivery for Teaching Task-Specific Learning Strategies to Students with Learning Disabilities

This article proposes that how learning strategies are taught to students with learning disabilities (LD) is as important as the strategies themselves. Moreover, the preponderance of existing research supports an explicit approach for designing and delivering lessons for teaching students with LD to learn and use task-specific learning strategies. To frame this discussion, the article presents a general description of task-specific learning strategies as well as an explanation as to why many students with LD need instruction in this area. Next, it offers the design and content features of task-specific strategies found in existing strategy curricula, followed by a brief summary of the research on effective elements of instruction for teaching skills and strategies to students with LD. The remainder of.the article focuses on how to teach task-specific learning strategies in ways that incorporate identified effective and explicit teaching methodologies that address a number of learning characteristics associated with learning disabilities

Elementary high school biology

"Approved May 14, '15, J.L. Meriam."Includes a letter of approval from W.L. Curtis.Typescript.This thesis is an attempt at the solution of a problem which has grown out of some discouragements and difficulties experienced in connection with three years of teaching biological sciences to first year high school students in the public schools of this state. The problem is the outcome of two convictions. The first of these is that the discouragements and difficulties mentioned were the natural consequences of an attempt to teach, in the most direct way possible, the fundamental facts and principles of the science. The second of these is, that to accomplish the best results in such a course, the fundamental aim should be to teach those things of biology which meet the immediate needs of the students and which, incidentally, will be of most use to them in after life whether school work is to be continued or not. During the years 1913-1914 and 1914-1915, while a student at the University of Missouri, an opportunity was given me to organize a course in elementary biology based upon such principles and to teach the course to a class of twenty five first year high school students at the University High School. At the same time I was permitted to do some nature study teaching in the upper grades of the University Elementary School in order that I might more thoroughly develop the young pupils' point of view. It is the purpose of this thesis to present an outline of the course in elementary biology as organized and, as far as possible, to evaluate the success with which it was taught. Before giving the outline, however, an exposition and criticism will be made of some typical elementary text books of biology that are being used in the high schools of this country. This will be followed by a more thorough statement and discussion of the principles underlying the organization of the course.Includes bibliographical reference