Students Who Fail to Achieve Predefined Research Goals May Still Experience Many Positive Outcomes as a Result of CURE Participation

Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) provide students opportunities to engage in research in a course. Aspects of CURE design, such as providing students opportunities to make discoveries, collaborate, engage in relevant work, and iterate to solve problems are thought to contribute to outcome achievement in CUREs. Yet how each of these elements contributes to specific outcomes is largely unexplored. This lack of understanding is problematic, because we may unintentionally underemphasize important aspects of CURE design that allow for achievement of highly valued outcomes when designing or teaching our courses. In this work, we take a qualitative approach and leverage unique circumstances in two offerings of a CURE to investigate how these design elements influence outcome achievement. One offering experienced many research challenges that increased engagement in iteration. This level of research challenge ultimately prevented achievement of predefined research goals. In the other offering, students experienced fewer research challenges and ultimately achieved predefined research goals. Our results suggest that, when students encounter research challenges and engage in iteration, they have the potential to increase their ability to navigate scientific obstacles. In addition, our results suggest roles for collaboration and autonomy, or directing one's own work, in outcome achievement

Horizontal Branch Stars: The Interplay between Observations and Theory, and Insights into the Formation of the Galaxy

We review HB stars in a broad astrophysical context, including both variable and non-variable stars. A reassessment of the Oosterhoff dichotomy is presented, which provides unprecedented detail regarding its origin and systematics. We show that the Oosterhoff dichotomy and the distribution of globular clusters (GCs) in the HB morphology-metallicity plane both exclude, with high statistical significance, the possibility that the Galactic halo may have formed from the accretion of dwarf galaxies resembling present-day Milky Way satellites such as Fornax, Sagittarius, and the LMC. A rediscussion of the second-parameter problem is presented. A technique is proposed to estimate the HB types of extragalactic GCs on the basis of integrated far-UV photometry. The relationship between the absolute V magnitude of the HB at the RR Lyrae level and metallicity, as obtained on the basis of trigonometric parallax measurements for the star RR Lyrae, is also revisited, giving a distance modulus to the LMC of (m-M)_0 = 18.44+/-0.11. RR Lyrae period change rates are studied. Finally, the conductive opacities used in evolutionary calculations of low-mass stars are investigated. [ABRIDGED]Comment: 56 pages, 22 figures. Invited review, to appear in Astrophysics and Space Scienc

Determination of the Form Factors for the Decay B0 --> D*-l+nu_l and of the CKM Matrix Element |Vcb|

We present a combined measurement of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix element $|V_{cb}|$ and of the parameters $\rho^2$, $R_1$, and $R_2$, which fully characterize the form factors of the $B^0 \to D^{*-}\ell^{+}\nu_\ell$ decay in the framework of HQET, based on a sample of about 52,800 $B^0 \to D^{*-}\ell^{+}\nu_\ell$ decays recorded by the BABAR detector. The kinematical information of the fully reconstructed decay is used to extract the following values for the parameters (where the first errors are statistical and the second systematic): $\rho^2 = 1.156 \pm 0.094 \pm 0.028$, $R_1 = 1.329 \pm 0.131 \pm 0.044$, $R_2 = 0.859 \pm 0.077 \pm 0.022$, $\mathcal{F}(1)|V_{cb}| = (35.03 \pm 0.39 \pm 1.15) \times 10^{-3}$. By combining these measurements with the previous BABAR measurements of the form factors which employs a different technique on a partial sample of the data, we improve the statistical accuracy of the measurement, obtaining: $\rho^2 = 1.179 \pm 0.048 \pm 0.028, R_1 = 1.417 \pm 0.061 \pm 0.044, R_2 = 0.836 \pm 0.037 \pm 0.022,$ and $\mathcal{F}(1)|V_{cb}| = (34.68 \pm 0.32 \pm 1.15) \times 10^{-3}.$ Using the lattice calculations for the axial form factor $\mathcal{F}(1)$, we extract $|V_{cb}| =(37.74 \pm 0.35 \pm 1.25 \pm ^{1.23}_{1.44}) \times 10^{-3}$, where the third error is due to the uncertainty in $\mathcal{F}(1)$

Study of the Exclusive Initial-State Radiation Production of the DDˉD \bar D System

A study of exclusive production of the $D \bar D$ system through initial-state r adiation is performed in a search for charmonium states, where $D=D^0$ or $D^+$. The $D^0$ mesons are reconstructed in the $D^0 \to K^- \pi^+$, $D^0 \to K^- \pi^+ \pi^0$, and $D^0 \to K^- \pi^+ \pi^+ \pi^-$ decay modes. The $D^+$ is reconstructed through the $D^+ \to K^- \pi^+ \pi^+$ decay mode. The analysis makes use of an integrated luminosity of 288.5 fb$^{-1}$ collected by the BaBar experiment. The $D \bar D$ mass spectrum shows a clear $\psi(3770)$ signal. Further structures appear in the 3.9 and 4.1 GeV/$c^2$ regions. No evidence is found for Y(4260) decays to $D \bar D$, implying an up per limit \frac{\BR(Y(4260)\to D \bar D)}{\BR(Y(4260)\to J/\psi \pi^+ \pi^-)} < 7.6 (95 % confidence level)

Measurements of Branching Fractions, Polarizations, and Direct CP-Violation Asymmetries in B→ρK∗ and B→f0(980)K∗ Decays

We report searches for B -meson decays to the charmless final states ρ K ∗ and f 0 ( 980 ) K ∗ with a sample of 232 × 10 6 B ¯¯¯ B pairs collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II e + e − collider. We measure in units of 10 − 6 the following branching fractions, where the first error quoted is statistical and the second systematic, or upper limits are given at the 90% confidence level : B ( B + → ρ 0 K * + ) < 6.1 , B ( B + → ρ + K * 0 ) = 9.6 ± 1.7 ± 1.5 , B ( B 0 → ρ − K * + ) < 12.0 , B ( B 0 → ρ 0 K * 0 ) = 5.6 ± 0.9 ± 1.3 , B ( B + → f 0 ( 980 ) K * + ) = 5.2 ± 1.2 ± 0.5 , and B ( B 0 → f 0 ( 980 ) K * 0 ) < 4.3 . For the significant modes, we also measure the fraction of longitudinal polarization and the charge asymmetry: f L ( B + → ρ + K * 0 ) = 0.52 ± 0.10 ± 0.04 , f L ( B 0 → ρ 0 K * 0 ) = 0.57 ± 0.09 ± 0.08 , A C P ( B + → ρ + K * 0 ) = − 0.01 ± 0.16 ± 0.02 , A C P ( B 0 → ρ 0 K * 0 ) = 0.09 ± 0.19 ± 0.02 , and A C P ( B + → f 0 ( 980 ) K * + ) = − 0.34 ± 0.21 ± 0.03

The Search for B+ to Tau+ Nu(Tau) at BaBar

We present a search for the decay B{sup +} {yields} {tau}{sup +}{nu}{sub {tau}} using 288 fb{sup -1} of data collected at the {Upsilon}(4S) resonance with the BABAR detector at the SLAC PEP-II B-Factory. A sample of events with one reconstructed semileptonic B decay (B{sup -} {yields} D{sup o}{ell}{sup -}{bar {nu}}{sub {ell}}X) is selected, and in the recoil a search for B{sup +} {yields} {tau}{sup +}{nu}{sub {tau}} signal is performed. The {tau} is identified in the following channels: {tau}{sup +} {yields} e{sup +}{nu}{sub e}{bar {nu}}{sub {tau}}, {tau}{sup +} {yields} {mu}{sup +} {nu}{sub {mu}}{bar {nu}}{sub {tau}}, {tau}{sup +} {yields} {pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup 0}{bar {nu}}{sub {tau}}. We measure a branching fraction of {Beta}(B{sup +} {yields} {tau}{sup +}{nu}{sub {tau}}) = 0.88{sub -0.67}{sup +0.68}(stat.) {+-} 0.11(syst.) x 10{sup -4} and extract an upper limit on the branching fraction, at the 90% confidence level, of {Beta}(B{sup +} {yields} {tau}{sup +}{nu}{sub {tau}}) &lt; 1.8 x 10{sup -4}. We calculate the product of the B meson decay constant and |V{sub ub}| to be f{sub B} {center_dot} |V{sub ub}| = (7.0{sub -3.6}{sup +2.3}(stat.){sub -0.5}{sup +0.4}(syst.)) x 10{sup -4} GeV

Discoveries on a data-mining expedition: single session social work in hospitals

Data-mining is a method for practice-based research that draws on existing organizational data to inform practice issues and build social work knowledge. This article reports on how a study investigating social work practice questions about the nature and extent of single session work in hospitals was enhanced by accessing the extensive hospital patient data system. Useful descriptive statistics on the level, purpose, location, and activities of single session social work in nine hospitals in a region of Australia were generated from the patient data. The researchers also report on the importance of a consultative and collaborative process for effective data-mining outcomes