A Review of the Open Educational Resources (OER) Movement: Achievements, Challenges, and New Opportunities

Examines the state of the foundation's efforts to improve educational opportunities worldwide through universal access to and use of high-quality academic content

Dipolar Bose gases: Many-body versus mean-field description

We characterize zero-temperature dipolar Bose gases under external spherical confinement as a function of the dipole strength using the essentially exact many-body diffusion Monte Carlo (DMC) technique. We show that the DMC energies are reproduced accurately within a mean-field framework if the variation of the s-wave scattering length with the dipole strength is accounted for properly. Our calculations suggest stability diagrams and collapse mechanisms of dipolar Bose gases that differ significantly from those previously proposed in the literature

Aboriginal children's participation and engagement in Bush School

In this chapter we will discuss an outdoor learning project with young Aboriginal children (4-8 years), their teachers and their community in Perth, Western Australia. Due to the location of this project in the Perth region, there are no forests nearby, wild spaces within a short drive from the school are native bush areas and hence we refer to our outdoor learning project as “Bush School” rather than “Forest School”. The reader will learn how a local community worked together to provide experiences for young children in an outdoor setting that enabled them to learn and experience the outdoors in a culturally appropriate way. This chapter will provide an important voice in the literature regarding outdoor learning since it specifically works within an Aboriginal community context and emphasises traditional cultural knowledge about relationships with nature and a sense of belonging in the natural world. Teachers in a range of settings could adapt the experiences described in this chapter to local situations. More importantly, teachers involved in this (or other) outdoor learning experiences are provided with the opportunity to learn first- hand about traditional ways of ‘knowing, being and doing’ (Martin, 2005) and this has enormous potential for programming when back in the mortar and brick classroom. An important feature of this chapter is the incorporation of traditional cultural knowledge and spiritual connection to place that is highly significant for Aboriginal students and the communities to which they belong. The cultural perspectives discussed in this chapter may also be relevant for educators working with other First Nations communities such as the Pacific Islands, Australia, New Zealand, Scandinavia, Asia, Canada and North and South America

Strengthening identities and involvement of Aboriginal children through learning on country

Djarlgarra Koolunger (Canning River kids) is a culturally centred outdoor learning project referred to as ‘On Country Learning’ or OCL. The project explores Aboriginal connectedness to the spiritual, social, cultural, environmental and geographic dimensions of particular outdoor spaces. This allows Indigenous and non- Indigenous students and their educators to connect at what Nakata (2007) terms the ‘cultural interface’. OCL offers opportunities to transform the ways in which schools engage with Aboriginal perspectives whilst facilitating deep learning through what we describe as culturally responsive pedagogies. This paper stories the journey of Aboriginal students and their teachers, engaging in learning that is situated on Country. We examine the involvement of children when learning on Country and provide analysis using the Leuven Involvement Scales (1994). The analysis compares this group of children in a classroom context and an on Country context over a period of six months and provides preliminary evidence of the efficacy of this approach

Dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates with dipole-dependent scattering length

We consider a Bose-Einstein condensate of polar molecules in a harmonic trap, where the effective dipole may be tuned by an external field. We demonstrate that taking into account the dependence of the scattering length on the dipole moment is essential to reproducing the correct energies and for predicting the stability of the condensate. We do this by comparing Gross-Pitaevskii calculations with diffusion Monte Carlo calculations. We find very good agreement between the results obtained by these two approaches once the dipole dependence of the scattering length is taken into account. We also examine the behavior of the condensate in non-isotropic traps

Generation and measurement of nonstationary random processes technical note no. 3

Generation and measurement of nonstationary stochastic processes related to Monte Carlo studies with analog compute

Effects of a torsion field on Big Bang nucleosynthesis

In this paper it is investigated whether torsion, which arises naturally in most theories of quantum gravity, has observable implications for the Big Bang nucleosynthesis. Torsion can lead to spin flips amongst neutrinos thus turning them into sterile neutrinos. In the early Universe they can alter the helium abundance which is tightly constrained by observations. Here I calculate to what extent torsion of the string theory type leads to a disagreement with the Big Bang nucleosynthesis predictions.Comment: accepted by General Relativity and Gravitatio

Pfaffian pairing wave functions in electronic structure quantum Monte Carlo

We investigate the accuracy of trial wave function for quantum Monte Carlo based on pfaffian functional form with singlet and triplet pairing. Using a set of first row atoms and molecules we find that these wave functions provide very consistent and systematic behavior in recovering the correlation energies on the level of 95%. In order to get beyond this limit we explore the possibilities of multi-pfaffian pairing wave functions. We show that a small number of pfaffians recovers another large fraction of the missing correlation energy comparable to the larger-scale configuration interaction wave functions. We also find that pfaffians lead to substantial improvements in fermion nodes when compared to Hartree-Fock wave functions.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables, submitted to PR

Surficial Geologic Map of the Patriot 7.5-Minute Quadrangle, Kentucky

The Patriot 7.5-minute quadrangle is located in Boone, Gallatin, and Grant Counties of northern Kentucky in the Outer Bluegrass physiographic province (McFarlan, 1943). Broad to narrow ridges, steep hillsides, and the Ohio River Valley characterize the topography of the quadrangle. The Ohio River has been made navigable by a series of high-level dams, and the Markland Locks and Dam controls the river level in this area (Ray, 1974). The bedrock geology, originally mapped by Swadley (1969), consists, from oldest to youngest, of the Point Pleasant Formation, the Kope Formation, the Fairview Formation, the Bellevue Tongue of the Grant Lake Limestone, and the Bullfork Formation. The Point Pleasant Formation is approximately 50 to 90 percent limestone and the remainder is shale; it is more than 55 ft thick and occurs along the lower hillsides near the Ohio River and tributary streams. The Kope Formation consists of approximately 80 percent shale and 20 percent limestone, is 190 to 235 ft thick, and is exposed along stream valleys and hillsides. The Fairview Formation is interbedded limestone (50 percent) and shale (50 percent), 105 to 115 ft thick, and occurs as a resistant unit on ridgetops. The Bellevue Tongue of the Grant Lake Limestone consists of rubbly-weathering limestone 3 to 5 ft thick on ridgetops. The Bullfork Formation is interbedded limestone (approximately 50 percent) and shale (50 percent), more than 45 ft thick, and occurs as thin caps on higher ridges in the quadrangle (Swadley 1969a). All formations are fossiliferous.https://uknowledge.uky.edu/kgs_cr/1006/thumbnail.jp