Stellar Populations in the Outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud: No Outer Edge Yet

We report the detection of intermediate-age and old stars belonging to the SMC at 6.5 kpc from the SMC center in the southern direction. We show, from the analysis of three high quality 34\arcmin $\times$ 33\arcmin CMDs, that the age composition of the stellar population is similar at galactocentric distances of $\thicksim$4.7 kpc, $\thicksim$5.6 kpc, and $\thicksim$6.5 kpc. The surface brightness profile of the SMC follows an exponential law, with no evidence of truncation, all the way out to 6.5 kpc. These results, taken together, suggest that the SMC `disk' population is dominating over a possible old Milky Way-like stellar halo, and that the SMC may be significantly larger than previously thought.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters. High resolution figures are available at ftp://ftp.iac.es/out/noe

Reflections of Practicing School Principals on Ethical Leadership and Decision-Making: Confronting Social Injustice

The study objective was to identify leadership dilemmas of practicing school administrators and their own codes of ethics to inform understandings of ethical decision-making. Ethical decision-making underpins leadership practice, theory, and preparation. Existing models for ethical leadership underplay the importance of social justice ethics in decision-making. The research encompassed a qualitative study based upon the constructivist paradigm. Data were collected in the form of interviews, document analyses, and professional observations with practicing school administrators in public schools. Dilemmas reported were analyzed utilizing ethical leadership theories together with social justice constructs. Results indicate ways practicing school administrators, faculty preparing administrators, and other business or organizational leaders can utilize ethical decision-making and leadership for organizational improvement

\u3ci\u3eHippodamia Variegata\u3c/i\u3e (Goeze) (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) Detected in Michigan Soybean Fields

Since its initial detection near Montreal, Canada in 1984, the variegated lady beetle Hippodamia variegata (Goeze) (Coleoptera:Coccinellidae) has spread throughout the northeastern United States. In 2005, this immigrant Old World species was detected in Michigan for the first time. Twenty-nine adults were found in soybean fields in 4 counties: Ingham, Gratiot, Kalamazoo, and Saginaw.The first individuals were found in Gratiot County on 22 June 2005; we continued to detect individuals until 18 Aug 2005 (2 individuals collected in Saginaw Co.) when sampling ended. Prior to this study, H. variegata had not been known to prey on the soybean aphid, Aphis glycines Matsumura (Homoptera: Aphididae). The establishment of soybean aphid throughout the north-central U.S. may aid the spread of H. variegata throughout the region

Correcting low-frequency noise with continuous measurement

Low-frequency noise presents a serious source of decoherence in solid-state qubits. When combined with a continuous weak measurement of the eigenstates, the low-frequency noise induces a second-order relaxation between the qubit states. Here we show that the relaxation provides a unique approach to calibrate the low-frequency noise in the time-domain. By encoding one qubit with two physical qubits that are alternatively calibrated, quantum logic gates with high fidelity can be performed.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, submitte

Theory of the Ramsey spectroscopy and anomalous segregation in ultra-cold rubidium

The recent anomalous segregation experiment of Lewandowski et al. (PRL, 88, 070403, 2002) shows dramatic, rapid internal state segregation for two hyperfine levels of rubidium. We simulate an effective one dimensional model of the system for experimental parameters and find reasonable agreement with the data. The Ramsey frequency is found to be insensitive to the decoherence of the superposition, and is only equivalent to the interaction energy shift for a pure superposition. A Quantum Boltzmann equation describing collisions is derived using Quantum Kinetic Theory, taking into account the different scattering lengths of the internal states. As spin-wave experiments are likely to be attempted at lower temperatures we examine the effect of degeneracy on decoherence by considering the recent experiment of Lewandowski et al. where degeneracy is around 10%. We also find that the segregation effect is only possible when transport terms are included in the equations of motion, and that the interactions only directly alter the momentum distributions of the states. The segregation or spin wave effect is thus entirely due to coherent atomic motion as foreseen in the experimental reportComment: 26 pages, 4 figures, to be published in J. Phys.

Quantifying the Drivers of Star Formation on Galactic Scales. I. The Small Magellanic Cloud

We use the star formation history of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) to place quantitative limits on the effect of tidal interactions and gas infall on the star formation and chemical enrichment history of the SMC. The coincident timing of two recent (< 4 Gyr) increases in the star formation rate and SMC/Milky Way(MW) pericenter passages suggests that global star formation in the SMC is driven at least in part by tidal forces due to the MW. The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is the other potential driver of star formation, but is only near the SMC during the most recent burst. The poorly constrained LMC-SMC orbit is our principal uncertainty. To explore the correspondence between bursts and MW pericenter passages further, we model star formation in the SMC using a combination of continuous and tidally-triggered star formation. The behavior of the tidally-triggered mode is a strong inverse function of the SMC-MW separation (preferred behavior ~ r^-5, resulting in a factor of ~100 difference in the rate of tidally-triggered star formation at pericenter and apocenter). Despite the success of these closed-box evolutionary models in reproducing the recent SMC star formation history and current chemical abundance, they have some systematic shortcomings that are remedied by postulating that a sizable infall event (~ 50% of the total gas mass) occured about 4 Gyr ago. Regardless of whether this infall event is included, the fraction of stars in the SMC that formed via a tidally triggered mode is > 10% and could be as large as 70%.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap

Parametric Inference for Biological Sequence Analysis

One of the major successes in computational biology has been the unification, using the graphical model formalism, of a multitude of algorithms for annotating and comparing biological sequences. Graphical models that have been applied towards these problems include hidden Markov models for annotation, tree models for phylogenetics, and pair hidden Markov models for alignment. A single algorithm, the sum-product algorithm, solves many of the inference problems associated with different statistical models. This paper introduces the \emph{polytope propagation algorithm} for computing the Newton polytope of an observation from a graphical model. This algorithm is a geometric version of the sum-product algorithm and is used to analyze the parametric behavior of maximum a posteriori inference calculations for graphical models.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures. See also companion paper "Tropical Geometry of Statistical Models" (q-bio.QM/0311009

Number-Phase Wigner Representation for Efficient Stochastic Simulations

Phase-space representations based on coherent states (P, Q, Wigner) have been successful in the creation of stochastic differential equations (SDEs) for the efficient stochastic simulation of high dimensional quantum systems. However many problems using these techniques remain intractable over long integrations times. We present a number-phase Wigner representation that can be unraveled into SDEs. We demonstrate convergence to the correct solution for an anharmonic oscillator with small dampening for significantly longer than other phase space representations. This process requires an effective sampling of a non-classical probability distribution. We describe and demonstrate a method of achieving this sampling using stochastic weights.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figur

Phase dynamics of a multimode Bose condensate controlled by decay

The relative phase between two uncoupled BE condensates tends to attain a specific value when the phase is measured. This can be done by observing their decay products in interference. We discuss exactly solvable models for this process in cases where competing observation channels drive the phases to different sets of values. We treat the case of two modes which both emit into the input ports of two beam splitters, and of a linear or circular chain of modes. In these latter cases, the transitivity of relative phase becomes an issue

The Morphologies of the Small Magellanic Cloud

We compare the distribution of stars of different spectral types, and hence mean age, within the central SMC and find that the asymmetric structures are almost exclusively composed of young main sequence stars. Because of the relative lack of older stars in these features, and the extremely regular distribution of red giant and clump stars in the SMC central body, we conclude that tides alone are not responsible for the irregular appearance of the central SMC. The dominant physical mechanism in determining the current-day appearance of the SMC must be star formation triggered by a hydrodynamic interaction between gaseous components. These results extend the results of population studies (cf. Gardiner and Hatzidimitriou) inward in radius and also confirm the suggestion of the spheroidal nature of the central SMC based on kinematic arguments (Dopita et al; Hardy, Suntzeff & Azzopardi). Finally, we find no evidence in the underlying older stellar population for a ``bar'' or ``outer arm'', again supporting our classification of the central SMC as a spheroidal body with highly irregular recent star formation.Comment: 8 pages, accepted for publication in ApJ Letters (higher quality figures available at http://ngala.as.arizona.edu/dennis/mcsurvey.html