A Numerical Simulation of Chern-Simons Inflation

In this work, we present results of numerical simulations of the Chern-Simons Inflation Model proposed by Alexander, Marciano and Spergel. According to this model, inflation begins with a fermion condensate interacting with a gauge field. Crucial to the success of this mechanism is the assumption that the Chern-Simons interaction would drive energy from the initial random spectrum into a narrow band of frequencies at superhorizon scales. In this work we numerically confirm this expectation. These gauge fields and currents, when combined with the Friedmann equations, were broken into a system of hyperbolic equations and numerically simulated. It was found in our simulation that, by including the effects of the chiral anomaly for the axial vector current, inflation ended satisfactorily after approximately 60 e-folds.Comment: 6 pages, 8 figure

The Effect of WhyTry on Student Motivation

The United States of America’s educational system came under fire in 1983 when the National Committee on Excellence in Education published its report “A Nation at Risk” critiquing the system’s failings and calling for a raising of standards (Goldberg & Harvey, 1983). Since the report, the nation has seen wide-sweeping attempts at educational reform such as No Child Left Behind and the Common Core State Standards. Despite more school accountability and increased rigor there are districts, counties, and states that are witnessing a decline or lack of improvement in student achievement (Betts, Young, Zau, & Bachofer, 2016). A multitude of studies discussed in this paper have found that engaged students generally perform better academically, and that motivation is a key factor in student engagement. This study utilized a quasi-experimental quantitative design using the six subscales related to student motivation on the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ; Pintrich, 1991) to measure the effectiveness of the WhyTry intervention ( WhyTry Resilience Education , 2017) for a control and treatment group of 9th grade English classes. WhyTry ( WhyTry Resilience Education , 2017) is a modular program designed to help students over obstacles in life and raise their academic motivation (“WhyTry Resilience Education”, 2017). Independent and paired t-tests were conducted to determine if the intervention was successful in improving the motivation of the treatment group. Ultimately the results were inconclusive. This study reinforces the call for more research on interventions aimed at raising student academic motivation and thus their level of academic achievement

An Analysis of the Stability and Transport of CO\u3csub\u3e2\u3c/sub\u3e on Mars and Iapetus: Increasing Accuracy via Experiments and Photometry

Volatile transport of carbon dioxide is most relevant on two planetary bodies in our solar system: Mars and Iapetus. We experimentally measured the sublimation rate of CO2 ice under simulated martian conditions and developed a model based on our experimental results. We experimentally verified that solar irradiance is the primary control for the sublimation of CO2 ice on the martian poles with the amount of radiation striking the surface being controlled by variations in the optical depth, ensuring the formation and sublimation of the seasonal cap. Our model, supported by comparison of MGS-MOC and MRO-HiRISE images, shows that ~ 0.4 m is currently being lost from the south perennial cap per martian year. In order to build a similar model for Iapetus, one key parameter was needed: the bolometric Bond albedo. We used photometry of Cassini VIMS observations of Iapetus to produce the first phase integrals calculated directly from solar phase curves of Iapetus for the leading hemisphere and to estimate the phase integrals for the trailing hemisphere. Our phase integrals, which are lower than previous results, have profound implications for the analyses of the energy balance and volatile transport on this icy satellite. We also utilized Cassini VIMS and ISS and Voyager ISS observations of Iapetus to produce the first bolometric Bond albedo map of Iapetus; the average albedo values for the leading and trailing hemispheres are 0.25 ± 0.03 and 0.05 ± 0.01 respectively. On Iapetus, which has no detectable atmosphere, any carbon dioxide sublimating from the dark material, where it was discovered by reflectance spectroscopy, would either escape the body or migrate on ballistic trajectories to a possible polar cold trap. However, through proof by contradiction, we show that if dry ice is the source of the detected signal in the dark material, it produces an impossible scenario where an extensive polar cap is produced along with incorrect temperatures for the dark material at equatorial latitudes. After ruling out surface dry ice as the source, we set upper limits on the amount of CO2 transport that can occur on Iapetus without forming a polar cap

Computer Simulation of the VASIMR Engine

The goal of this project is to develop a magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) computer code for simulation of the VASIMR engine. This code is designed be easy to modify and use. We achieve this using the Cactus framework, a system originally developed for research in numerical relativity. Since its release, Cactus has become an extremely powerful and flexible open source framework. The development of the code will be done in stages, starting with a basic fluid dynamic simulation and working towards a more complex MHD code. Once developed, this code can be used by students and researchers in order to further test and improve the VASIMR engine

The Narrative Exercise: Introduction to Therapeutic Communication in the Psychiatry Clerkship

Introduction: In medical school, much time is devoted to teaching students to elicit disease-centered histories from their patients. The narrative exercise supplements this traditional focus by requiring students to develop a person-centered narrative for one patient under their care. While the ultimate test of a diagnosis is the verification of the diagnosis by tests or treatment outcome, the ultimate test of a patient-centered narrative is whether the patient accepts it as a legitimate characterization of his or her experience. Methods: The psychiatry clerkship directors at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and George Washington University School of Medicine have developed parallel clerkship activities that teach the skill of constructing narratives in doctor patient communication. These exercises structure student/patient interactions according to the principles of narrative medicine, narrative therapy, and psychotherapy. Each school required the students first to elicit a patient\u27s life story, then to write it out, present it to a preceptor, and finally to present it directly to the patient for comment. Results: Of 18 students surveyed using a five-point Likert scale (5 = Strongly Agree) the statement “The narrative exercise is a useful way to learn psychotherapy skills” received an average score of 3.94. The statement “The narrative exercise should be required in the psychiatry clerkship” received an average score of 3.88. Discussion: Patients\u27 stories, the ways in which they describe illness and the meaning of illness in the context of their lives, form the core of both the contemporary discipline of narrative medicine and the traditional practice of psychotherapy. The ability to elicit and shape patients\u27 narratives requires specific skills essential to the implementation of humanistic values in medicine. Students need guidance in cultivating the capacity to communicate in ways that make patients feel accepted, cared for, empowered, and hopeful within the constraints of their medical conditions. This resource presents the basic elements of the narrative exercise jointly developed at the University of Rochester and the George Washington University, along with the specific modifications each school made to integrate the exercise into its overall curriculum. MedEdPORTAL publication ID 7765. Link to original