Losing My Religion? The Impact of Spiritual Cues on Noncognitive Skills

Studies consistently show that Catholic schools produce positive impacts on educational outcomes. Many charter school networks in the United States now provide, what are essentially, secularized versions of the Catholic education model. However, charter schools cannot legally replicate the overt religious curriculum and mission of Catholic schools. Although difficult to disentangle its impacts from confounding variables, research suggests that religiosity is a positive predictor of educational outcomes. This relationship might suggest that religious-based education produces effects on outcomes of public value that could be difficult to replicate in secularized contexts. To examine this question we conducted an experiment where 180 secondary school students were randomly assigned to a priming task with religious, secularized, or neutral cues. We find that religious cues increase students’ self-regulatory capacities, a predictor of educational attainment, and boost political tolerance. These findings provide preliminary evidence to suggest that religious-based education provides benefits that their secularized equivalents cannot fully emulate. ¿Perdiendo mi religión? El impacto de las señales espirituales en las destrezas no cognitivas Estudios muestran consistentemente que las escuelas católicas producen impactos positivos en los resultados educativos. Muchas redes de escuelas chárter en los Estados Unidos ahora ofrecen lo que esencialmente son versiones secularizadas del modelo educativo católico. Sin embargo, las escuelas chárter no pueden legalmente replicar el currículum abiertamente religioso y la misión de las escuelas católicas. A pesar de la dificultad de desentramar sus impactos de las desconcertantes variables, la investigación sugiere que la religiosidad es un indicador positivo de los resultados educativos. Esta relación puede sugerir que la educación basada en la religión produce efectos en resultados de valor público que podrían ser difíciles de repetir en contextos secularizados. Para examinar esta pregunta llevamos a cabo un experimento en el que se les asignó al azar a 180 estudiantes de escuelas secundarias una tarea preparatoria con indicaciones religiosas, secularizadas o neutras. Encontramos que las indicaciones religiosas aumentaron las capacidades de autorregulación de los estudiantes, un indicador de los logros educativos, y potenció la tolerancia política. Estas conclusiones ofrecen una evidencia preliminar para sugerir que la educación basada en la religión provee beneficios cuyos equivalentes seculares no pueden emular. Palabras clave: educación religiosa, escuelas chárter, elección de escuela, habilidades no cognitivas, educación cívica Est-ce que je perds ma religion ? L\u27incidence des incitations spirituelles sur les compétences non cognitives Les études montrent constamment que les écoles catholiques ont une incidence positive sur les résultats scolaires. De nombreux réseaux d\u27écoles sous contrat aux États-Unis présentent maintenant ce qui constitue essentiellement des versions laïques du modèle éducatif catholique. Toutefois, les écoles sous contrat ne peuvent pas légalement reproduire les programmes et la mission ouvertement religieux des écoles catholiques. Bien qu\u27il soit difficile de démêler son incidence parmi des variables qui prêtent à confusion, des recherches indiquent que la religiosité est une variable prédictive positive des résultats scolaires. Ce lien pourrait indiquer qu\u27une éducation religieuse a des incidences sur des résultats d’utilité publique, et qu\u27il serait difficile de les reproduire dans un contexte laïque. Pour examiner la question, nous avons mené une expérience dans laquelle 180 élèves d\u27écoles secondaires catholiques ont été affectés de manière aléatoire à des tâches préparatoires assorties d\u27indications religieuses, laïques ou neutres. Nous avons trouvé que les indications religieuses augmentent les capacités autorégulatrices des élèves, une variance prédictive de l\u27atteinte des objectifs et d\u27un renforcement de la tolérance politique. Ces conclusions donnent des éléments de preuve indiquant qu\u27une éducation religieuse apporte des avantages que les équivalents laïques ne peuvent pas égaler totalement. Mots-clés : éducation religieuse, écoles sous contrat, choix de l\u27école, compétences non cognitives, instruction civiqu

Dynamic Hybrid Beamforming Design for Dual-Function Radar-Communication Systems

This paper investigates dynamic hybrid beamforming (HBF) for a dual-function radar-communication (DFRC) system, where the DFRC base station (BS) simultaneously serves multiple single-antenna users and senses a target in the presence of multiple clutters. Particularly, we apply a HBF architecture with dynamic subarrays and double phase shifters in the DFRC BS. Aiming at maximizing the radar mutual information, we consider jointly designing the dynamic HBF of the DFRC system, subject to the constraints of communication quality of service (QoS), transmit power, and analog beamformer. To solve the complicated non-convex optimization, an efficient alternating optimization algorithm based on the majorization-minimization methods is developed. Simulation results verify the advancement of the considered HBF architecture and the effectiveness of the proposed design method

Free spectral range electrical tuning of a high quality on-chip microcavity

Reconfigurable photonic circuits have applications ranging from next-generation computer architectures to quantum networks, coherent radar and optical metamaterials. However, complete reconfigurability is only currently practical on millimetre-scale device footprints. Here, we overcome this barrier by developing an on-chip high quality microcavity with resonances that can be electrically tuned across a full free spectral range (FSR). FSR tuning allows resonance with any source or emitter, or between any number of networked microcavities. We achieve it by integrating nanoelectronic actuation with strong optomechanical interactions that create a highly strain-dependent effective refractive index. This allows low voltages and sub-nanowatt power consumption. We demonstrate a basic reconfigurable photonic network, bringing the microcavity into resonance with an arbitrary mode of a microtoroidal optical cavity across a telecommunications fibre link. Our results have applications beyond photonic circuits, including widely tuneable integrated lasers, reconfigurable optical filters for telecommunications and astronomy, and on-chip sensor networks.Comment: Main text: 7 pages, 3 figures. Supplementary information: 7 pages, 9 figure

Locality in the creation of electron-positron pairs

We examine the mathematical solutions of the Dirac equation to predict the spontaneous electron-positron pair creation from the vacuum. The Dirac equation contains a position and time-dependent scalar potential to approximate the effect of an external force on the vacuum. We focus on forces that are localized in space as well as in time and find that the resulting creation process is also localized in time but delocalized in space. This illustrates that the Dirac equation can show nonlocal behavior as it predicts that particles can be created even in spatial regions where the force is zero. We also examine the spatial distribution of the created particles and show that for spatially extended force fields it is proportional to the square of the position dependence of the force. But when the force field is narrower than the Compton wavelength, the created electron density approaches a universal shape invariant form that is independent of the strength of the force for sufficiently weak field strength