4,676 research outputs found
Experiential Learning Theory as a Guide for Experiential Educators in Higher Education
Core concepts of Experiential Learning Theory—the learning cycle, learning style, and learning space—have been widely used by experiential educators in higher education for nearly half a century. We examine the latest thinking about these three concepts and highlight some exemplary applications from the many disciplinary applications of experiential learning in higher education
Initial states and infrared physics in locally de Sitter spacetime
The long wavelength physics in a de Sitter region depends on the initial
quantum state. While such long wavelength physics is under control for massive
fields near the Hartle-Hawking vacuum state, such initial states make unnatural
assumptions about initial data outside the region of causal contact of a local
observer. We argue that a reasonable approximation to a maximum entropy state,
one that makes minimal assumptions outside an observer's horizon volume, is one
where a cutoff is placed on a surface bounded by timelike geodesics, just
outside the horizon. For sufficiently early times, such a cutoff induces
secular logarithmic divergences with the expansion of the region. For massive
fields, these effects sum to finite corrections at sufficiently late times. The
difference between the cutoff correlators and Hartle-Hawking correlators
provides a measure of the theoretical uncertainty due to lack of knowledge of
the initial state in causally disconnected regions. These differences are
negligible for primordial inflation, but can become significant during epochs
with very long-lived de Sitter regions, such as we may be entering now.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures, references adde
Complex Hybrid Inflation and Baryogenesis
We propose a hybrid inflation model with a complex waterfall field which
contains an interaction term that breaks the U(1) global symmetry associated to
the waterfall field charge. We show that the asymmetric evolution of the real
and imaginary parts of the complex field during the phase transition at the end
of inflation translates into a charge asymmetry. The latter strongly depends on
the vev of the waterfall field, which is well constrained by diverse
cosmological observations.Comment: 4 RevTex pages, no figures. Changes made in response to referee's
comments; matches version published in Phys.Rev.Let
Gravitational waves from an early matter era
We investigate the generation of gravitational waves due to the gravitational
instability of primordial density perturbations in an early matter-dominated
era which could be detectable by experiments such as LIGO and LISA. We use
relativistic perturbation theory to give analytic estimates of the tensor
perturbations generated at second order by linear density perturbations. We
find that large enhancement factors with respect to the naive second-order
estimate are possible due to the growth of density perturbations on sub-Hubble
scales. However very large enhancement factors coincide with a breakdown of
linear theory for density perturbations on small scales. To produce a
primordial gravitational wave background that would be detectable with LIGO or
LISA from density perturbations in the linear regime requires primordial
comoving curvature perturbations on small scales of order 0.02 for Advanced
LIGO or 0.005 for LISA, otherwise numerical calculations of the non-linear
evolution on sub-Hubble scales are required.Comment: 23 pages, 2 figure
Recombinase mediated cassette exchange into genomic targets using an adenovirus vector
Recombinase mediated cassette exchange (RMCE) is a process in which site-specific recombinases exchange one gene cassette flanked by a pair of incompatible target sites for another cassette flanked by an identical pair of sites. Typically one cassette is present in the host genome, whereas the other gene cassette is introduced into the host cell by chemical or biological means. We show here that the frequency of cassette exchange is dependent on the relative and absolute quantities of the transgene cassette and the recombinase. We were able to successfully modify genomic targets not only by electroporation or chemically mediated gene transfer but also by using an adenovirus vector carrying both the transgene cassette to be inserted and the recombinase coding region. RMCE proceeds efficiently in cells in which the adenovirus vector is able to replicate. In contrast, insufficient quantities of the transgene cassette are produced in cells in which the virus cannot replicate. Additional transfection of the transgene cassette significantly enhances the RMCE frequency. This demonstrates that an RMCE system in the context of a viral vector allows the site directed insertion of a transgene into a defined genomic site
Quantum symmetric pairs and representations of double affine Hecke algebras of type
We build representations of the affine and double affine braid groups and
Hecke algebras of type , based upon the theory of quantum symmetric
pairs . In the case , our constructions provide a
quantization of the representations constructed by Etingof, Freund and Ma in
arXiv:0801.1530, and also a type generalization of the results in
arXiv:0805.2766.Comment: Final version, to appear in Selecta Mathematic
Dark matter concentration in the galactic center
It is shown that the matter concentration observed through stellar motion at
the galactic center (Eckart & Genzel, 1997, MNRAS, 284, 576 and Genzel et al.,
1996, ApJ, 472, 153) is consistent with a supermassive object of solar masses composed of self-gravitating, degenerate heavy neutrinos, as
an alternative to the black hole interpretation. According to the observational
data, the lower bounds on possible neutrino masses are
keV for or keV for , where is the
spin degeneracy factor. The advantage of this scenario is that it could
naturally explain the low X-ray and gamma ray activity of Sgr A, i.e. the
so called "blackness problem" of the galactic center.Comment: ApJ, 500, 591 (1998), AASTEX, aasms4.sty, v2 reference adde
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