A Scalable, Self-Analyzing Digital Locking System for use on Quantum Optics Experiments

Digital control of optics experiments has many advantages over analog control systems, specifically in terms of scalability, cost, flexibility, and the integration of system information into one location. We present a digital control system, freely available for download online, specifically designed for quantum optics experiments that allows for automatic and sequential re-locking of optical components. We show how the inbuilt locking analysis tools, including a white-noise network analyzer, can be used to help optimize individual locks, and verify the long term stability of the digital system. Finally, we present an example of the benefits of digital locking for quantum optics by applying the code to a specific experiment used to characterize optical Schrodinger cat states.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

Comparing teacher roles in Denmark and England

This article reports the findings of a comparative study of teaching in Denmark and England; its broader aim is to help develop an approach for comparing pedagogy. Lesson observations and interviews identified the range of goals towards which teachers in each country worked and the actions these prompted. These were clustered using the lens of Bernstein’s pedagogic discourse (1990; 1996) to construct teacher roles which provided a view of pedagogy. Through this approach we have begun to identify variations in pedagogy across two countries. All teachers in this study adopted a variety of roles; of significance was the ease with which competent English teachers moved between roles. The English teachers observed adopted roles consistent with a wider techno-rationalist discourse. There was a greater subject emphasis by Danish teachers whose work was set predominantly within a democratic humanist discourse, whilst the English teachers placed a greater emphasis on applied skills

Mid-latitude ozone changes: studies with a 3-D CTM forced by ERA-40 analyses

International audienceWe have used an off-line three-dimensional (3-D) chemical transport model (CTM) to study long-term changes in stratospheric O3. The model was run from 1977?2004 and forced by ECMWF ERA-40 and operational analyses. Model runs were performed to examine the impact of increasing halogens and additional stratospheric bromine from short-lived source gases. The analyses capture much of the observed interannual variability in column ozone, but there are also unrealistic features. In particular the ERA-40 analyses cause a large positive anomaly in northern hemisphere (NH) column O3 in the late 1980s. Also, the change from ERA-40 to operational winds at the start of 2002 introduces abrupt changes in some model fields which affect analysis of trends. The model reproduces the observed column increase in NH mid-latitudes from the mid 1990s. Analysis of a run with fixed halogens shows that this increase is not due to a significant decrease in halogen-induced loss, i.e. is not an indication of recovery. The model predicts only a small decrease in halogen-induced loss after 1999. In the upper stratosphere, despite the modelled turnover of chlorine around 1999, O3 does not increase to the effects of increasing ECMWF temperatures, decreasing modelled CH4 at this altitude, and abrupt changes to the SH temperatures at the end of the ERA-40 period. The impact of an additional 5 pptv stratospheric bromine from short-lived species decreases mid-latitude column O3 by about 10 DU. However, the impact on the modelled relative O3 anomaly is generally small except during periods of large volcanic loading

Effect of Anode Dielectric Coating on Hall Thruster Operation

An interesting phenomenon observed in the near-anode region of a Hall thruster is that the anode fall changes from positive to negative upon removal of the dielectric coating, which is produced on the anode surface during the normal course of Hall thruster operation. The anode fall might affect the thruster lifetime and acceleration efficiency. The effect of the anode coating on the anode fall is studied experimentally using both biased and emissive probes. Measurements of discharge current oscillations indicate that thruster operation is more stable with the coated anode

Cell interactions between histoincompatible T and B lymphocytes. VII. Cooperative responses between lymphocytes are controlled by genes in the I region of the H-2 complex

The results of this study provide compelling evidence for the existence of the gene or genes controlling optimal T-B-cell cooperative interactions in the designated I region of the H-2 gene complex. Previously, we have speculated that the relevant gene(s) involved may well be located in this region based on several observations from our earlier work in this area (3, 5, 6). Thus, in the preceding paper, we showed that T and B cells from B10.BR and A strain mice developed effective cooperative interactions in vitro to DNP-KLH in a system identical to the one reported herein. Since these mice differ for genes in the S and D regions of H-2 but are identical for K and I region genes, we were able to localize the critical genes to the K-end of H-2