Propositions for information technology: Planning for success

In Canada, the West Vancouver School Board proposed 13 propositions about the selection, management, and effective use of information technology. For each proposition, the senior management included a full outline of the current status, a plan of action, the name of the staff member responsible, and a time line. An external assessment of implementation of each proposition and of the impact on achievement was undertaken. The propositions, clustered in the areas of vision, statement of beliefs, student learning goals, definition, social issues, learning issues, clarification of roles and responsibilities, integration of information delivery systems, community-based information infrastructure, and assessment, are discussed

Teaching Inequality: How Poor and Minority Students Are Shortchanged on Teacher Quality

This report from the Education Trust provides new information on the impact of teacher quality on student achievement and offers specific steps states should take to remedy the persistent practice of denying the best teachers to the children who need them the most. The report also offers some key findings of soon-to-be released research in three states -- Ohio, Illinois and Wisconsin -- and major school systems within them. Funded by The Joyce Foundation and conducted with policymakers and researchers on the ground, the research project reveals that schools in these states and districts with high percentages of low-income and minority students are more likely to have teachers who are inexperienced, have lower basic academic skills or are not highly qualified -- reflecting troublesome national teacher distribution patterns

The foreign relations of the Napatan-Meroitic kingdom in the Sudan from the 8th century B.C. to the 4th century A.D.

This thesis is designed as a well-documented and discreet analysis of the relationship of the ancient kingdom of Cush to the external world in the light of the latest discoveries. It attempts to trace how far its rise was prompted by external factors and investigates the role of foreign pressures on its fall. The evidence is everywhere controversial, as can be seen from the diametrically opposed approaches of A.J. Arkell and W.Y. Adams, who use respectively the monumental architecture and the pottery as their main criteria of judgement. The present writer contends, however, that, whilst Arkell’s theory of progressive degeneration is inadequate, the history of the latter Napatan period and of the Meroitio age is much better documented than Adams thinks, if the literary evidence is fully utilised, and that the Reisnerian chronology forms an acceptable interim standpoint, provided that it is not given an authoritative status which its originator would never have claimed. The attitude taken to the Meroitic kingdom is that, at first, the Sudanese were encouraged by the desire for an outward higher culture to imitate Egypt as closely as they could, but that, during the prosperous period of the forth-third century B.C., their civilization advanced sufficiently to be able to generate many of its own ideas in building, pottery and writing. Only later with the onset of decline did the old lack of originality return - until all that was distinctively Meroitic vanished. The writer is willing to admit that the Meroites strongly influenced the peoples on their boundaries or within their territories, for example the Blemnyes and the Noba, but cannot see that Cush was ever a powerful focus for the diffusion of culture throughout Africa. He believes that kingships there arose from a primitive substratum of society older than Egypt or Cush, and were essentially an outcome of Neolithic alterations in human ecology. The view is advanced that the geographical and geological characteristics of the Sudan, which made its people semi-nomadic pastoralists rather than farmers, prevented the land ever becoming fully assimilated to Egypt, and determined that the entourage of the king and the priesthood should continue to be merely a thin veneer upon a people whose former way of life continued undisturbed, except possibly in Lower Nubia. This region became exceptionally prosperous in the first centuries A.D

A study of social and economic factors operating in ancient Egypt from the death of harnesses III to the commencement of the XXV dynasty

Not availabl

‘GETTING HERE FROM THERE’: TRAUMA AND TRANSFORMATION IN CANADIAN MILITARY EDUCATION

In early 1997, the Canadian Minister of National Defence publicly issued an excoriating report that roundly condemned the poor state of leadership, ethics discipline, professional knowledge and education in the Canadian Armed Forces particularly among officers. His public exposure stemmed from a series of traumatic events that occurred in the four previous years. The most damning one had been the appalling revelation that some soldiers of the Canadian Airborne Regiment, then on a peacekeeping mission in Somalia, had beaten to death a young Somali teenager. The trail led right back to senior officers in Canada and there was evidence of a cover-up. The embarrassed government was forced into appointing a top level Somalia Commission of Inquiry1. Then, in the next several months, followed revelations recorded on camera of grotesque initiation rites and racism in airborne units and others. The usually complacent and unmilitary Canadian public was shocked and indignant.2 The government promptly disbanded the Canadian Airborne Regiment. How, many asked, did the Canadian Forces get here from its excellent performance in past decades? It had fought well in both World Wars, in Korea and had served with great distinction in the many United Nations missions since that time. Canadians, after all prided themselves believing that their forces were the humanitarian ‘honest northern brokers’ and perhaps the world’s best peacekeepers

Measuring the Quantum State of a Large Angular Momentum

We demonstrate a general method to measure the quantum state of an angular momentum of arbitrary magnitude. The (2F+1) x (2F+1) density matrix is completely determined from a set of Stern-Gerlach measurements with (4F+1) different orientations of the quantization axis. We implement the protocol for laser cooled Cesium atoms in the 6S_{1/2}(F=4) hyperfine ground state and apply it to a variety of test states prepared by optical pumping and Larmor precession. A comparison of input and measured states shows typical reconstruction fidelities of about 0.95.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures, submitted to PR

Resolved-sideband Raman cooling to the ground state of an optical lattice

We trap neutral Cs atoms in a two-dimensional optical lattice and cool them close to the zero-point of motion by resolved-sideband Raman cooling. Sideband cooling occurs via transitions between the vibrational manifolds associated with a pair of magnetic sublevels and the required Raman coupling is provided by the lattice potential itself. We obtain mean vibrational excitations \bar{n}_x \approx \bar{n}_y \approx 0.01, corresponding to a population \sim 98% in the vibrational ground state. Atoms in the ground state of an optical lattice provide a new system in which to explore quantum state control and subrecoil laser coolingComment: PDF file, 13 pages including 3 figure

Phase Control of Nonadiabaticity-induced Quantum Chaos in An Optical Lattice

The qualitative nature (i.e. integrable vs. chaotic) of the translational dynamics of a three-level atom in an optical lattice is shown to be controllable by varying the relative laser phase of two standing wave lasers. Control is explained in terms of the nonadiabatic transition between optical potentials and the corresponding regular to chaotic transition in mixed classical-quantum dynamics. The results are of interest to both areas of coherent control and quantum chaos.Comment: 3 figures, 4 pages, to appear in Physical Review Letter

Multipartite Entanglement and Quantum State Exchange

We investigate multipartite entanglement in relation to the theoretical process of quantum state exchange. In particular, we consider such entanglement for a certain pure state involving two groups of N trapped atoms. The state, which can be produced via quantum state exchange, is analogous to the steady-state intracavity state of the subthreshold optical nondegenerate parametric amplifier. We show that, first, it possesses some 2N-way entanglement. Second, we place a lower bound on the amount of such entanglement in the state using a novel measure called the entanglement of minimum bipartite entropy.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

Dichotomy of Tyrosine Hydroxylase and Dopamine Regulation between Somatodendritic and Terminal Field Areas of Nigrostriatal and Mesoaccumbens Pathways

Measures of dopamine-regulating proteins in somatodendritic regions are often used only as static indicators of neuron viability, overlooking the possible impact of somatodendritic dopamine (DA) signaling on behavior and the potential autonomy of DA regulation between somatodendritic and terminal field compartments. DA reuptake capacity is less in somatodendritic regions, possibly placing a greater burden on de novo DA biosynthesis within this compartment to maintain DA signaling. Therefore, regulation of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) activity may be particularly critical for somatodendritic DA signaling. Phosphorylation of TH at ser31 or ser40 can increase activity, but their impact on L-DOPA biosynthesis in vivo is unknown. Thus, determining their relationship with L-DOPA tissue content could reveal a mechanism by which DA signaling is normally maintained. In Brown-Norway Fischer 344 F1 hybrid rats, we quantified TH phosphorylation versus L-DOPA accumulation. After inhibition of aromatic acid decarboxylase, L-DOPA tissue content per recovered TH protein was greatest in NAc, matched by differences in ser31, but not ser40, phosphorylation. The L-DOPA per catecholamine and DA turnover ratios were significantly greater in SN and VTA, suggesting greater reliance on de novo DA biosynthesis therein. These compartmental differences reflected an overall autonomy of DA regulation, as seen by decreased DA content in SN and VTA, but not in striatum or NAc, following short-term DA biosynthesis inhibition from local infusion of the TH inhibitor α-methyl-p-tyrosine, as well as in the long-term process of aging. Such data suggest ser31 phosphorylation plays a significant role in regulating TH activity in vivo, particularly in somatodendritic regions, which may have a greater reliance on de novo DA biosynthesis. Thus, to the extent that somatodendritic DA release affects behavior, TH regulation in the midbrain may be critical for DA bioavailability to influence behavior