Holographic Fermi arcs and a d-wave gap

We study fermion correlators in a holographic superfluid with a d-wave (spin two) order parameter. We find that, with a suitable bulk Majorana coupling, the Fermi surface is anisotropically gapped. At low temperatures the gap shrinks to four nodal points. At high temperatures the Fermi surface is partially gapped generating four Fermi arcs.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

The Relationship Between School Leadership and Graduation Coach Interventions in Rural and Urban Settings

The primary purpose for the Graduation Coach intervention is to increase the graduation rate and help schools produce a student that can be a productive citizen. The increasing dropout rate in the United States of America, coupled with the recent addition of some legislation, has forced schools and districts to implement programs to combat this deficiency. The economic and social impacts that dropouts have on society are vast and can be devastating for some communities. The setting in which a school resides and the leadership style of the school principal are factors that could have a significant impact on the success of the students and the intervention that is used to help increase the graduation rate. This study investigated if the setting, rural or urban, impacts the Graduation Coach intervention as measured by the graduation rate of the schools in each setting. A T-test was conducted and showed that there was no significance between the setting and graduation rate. A survey was sent to 50 principals, 25 from each setting, to investigate if there is any correlation between leadership style and graduation rate, their level of support for the Graduation Coach Intervention, the level of training the Graduation Coach received and their perceptions of the Graduation Coach’s duties. The first 40 statements on the survey were closed statements in which the respondents indicated their level of agreement by marking the appropriate box on the six-point Likert scale. The final two statements were open-ended questions that addressed the level of training the Graduation Coaches received and the perceptions of the principal about the role of the Graduation Coach. The results from this survey were evaluated through the use of a Pearson Correlation and indicated that there was no correlation between the leadership style and the graduation rate. The level of support for the intervention indicated by the principals also showed no significance when compared to the graduation rate. The data collected for the level of training had no significance, however, some schools that did have training had lower graduation rates than schools that did not receive training. The results of this study indicated that there are many other factors that impact student success and graduation rates. The variables that impact the success of a school are varied from school to school and the formula to having a successful school might never be found.

Music interaction research in HCI

The ubiquity of music consumption is overarching. Statistics for digital music sales, streaming video videos, computer games, and illegal sharing all speak of a huge interest. At the same, an incredible amount of data about every day interactions (sales and use) with music is accumulating through new cloud services. However, there is an amazing lack of public knowledge about everyday music interaction. This panel discusses the state of music interaction as a part of digital media research. We consider why music interaction research has become so marginal in HCI and discuss how to revive it. Our two discussion themes are: orientation towards design vs. research in music related R&D, and the question if and how private, big data on music interactions could enlighten our understanding of ubiquitous media culture

Infrastructural development as a strategy for Nigeria’s export promotion

Given the increase in the degree of interdependence among economies, the role of infrastructure in aiding these interactions between national economies is vital. This study discusses how Nigeria could adopt infrastructural development towards fostering export-led economic growth. Using descriptive and deductive approaches the study concludes that investment in infrastructure is key to enhancing the growth resurgence of a developing country such as Nigeria as infrastructure quality would have a pervasive influence on all areas of an economy thereby increasing productivity and consequently influencing exporting activities. In the light of the above the study while commending government’s effort of privatizing public corporations in an attempt to ensuring efficient infrastructure service delivery, the study recommends continuous development of infrastructure in the form of improvements in the provision of complementary transport infrastructure; introducing electronic and other related infrastructure at ports and airports so as to facilitate electronic clearance of export; as well as the stabilization of power supply in the country through constant augmentation of energy distribution channels in order to boost entrepreneurial activities. Sustaining these will go a long way in ensuring that export success is achieved in Nigeria.Keywords: Infrastructural development, Export Promotion, Economic growt

Self-Templated Nucleation in Peptide and Protein aggregation

Peptides and proteins exhibit a common tendency to assemble into highly ordered fibrillar aggregates, whose formation proceeds in a nucleation-dependent manner that is often preceded by the formation of disordered oligomeric assemblies. This process has received much attention because disordered oligomeric aggregates have been associated with neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. Here we describe a self-templated nucleation mechanism that determines the transition between the initial condensation of polypeptide chains into disordered assemblies and their reordering into fibrillar structures. The results that we present show that at the molecular level this transition is due to the ability of polypeptide chains to reorder within oligomers into fibrillar assemblies whose surfaces act as templates that stabilise the disordered assemblies.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure