Order 3 Symmetry in the Clifford Hierarchy

We investigate the action of the first three levels of the Clifford hierarchy on sets of mutually unbiased bases comprising the Ivanovic MUB and the Alltop MUBs. Vectors in the Alltop MUBs exhibit additional symmetries when the dimension is a prime number equal to 1 modulo 3 and thus the set of all Alltop vectors splits into three Clifford orbits. These vectors form configurations with so-called Zauner subspaces, eigenspaces of order 3 elements of the Clifford group highly relevant to the SIC problem. We identify Alltop vectors as the magic states that appear in the context of fault-tolerant universal quantum computing, wherein the appearance of distinct Clifford orbits implies a surprising inequivalence between some magic states.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figures. Published versio

Independent Evaluation of the Water and Sanitation Hibah Program Indonesia

This evaluation assess the effectiveness of Indonesia's Water and Sanitation Hibah Program pilot and identifies lessons for applying this mechanism more broadly. The program, which operates by paying an agreed amount for verified household water or sanitation service connections installed by local water and sanitation utilities, takes advantage of excess capacity of water companies to bypass the need for infrastructure investment. It was evaluated through a document review, key informant interviews, a key stakeholder workshop, field work, and a beneficiary survey, along with quantitative data from existing sources

Resorts, Resilience and Retention Ater the BP Oil Spill Disaster of 2010

This study attempted to quantify intention to return to a vacation rental along the Florida/Alabama Gulf Coast. Compounding this was the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster. We examined the intention to return to a vacation rental (nontraditional whole-ownership condominium resorts), as well as investigated marketing/retention efforts following the oil spill disaster and data on tourists’ trends over the summers of 2010 – 2013 via bed tax data. Data on tourists\u27 trends since the oil spill provided inference on the resilience of resort tourism in the area. Qualitative interviews with key informants of property management companies allowed analysis of customer retention efforts. Bed tax data in the region indicated strong growth from 2010—2013. Customer intention to return was most strongly influenced by proximity and amenities. Retention efforts after the spill focused on targeted messaging that built social capital values of trust and networks, thus improving resilience and moderating the customer perceptions of oil spill impacts in the region

Norepinephrine and Corticosterone in the neoCLOM Animal Model of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: Effects of Treatment and Sex

This study examined a novel animal model of OCD, the neoCLOM model, in which rats are treated twice daily from postnatal Days 9-16 with 15 mg/kg of the serotonin-norepinephrine uptake inhibitor clomipramine. Results showed there was an effect of neonatal TREATMENT on levels of norepinephrine (NE) measured from micropunches of post-mortem brain tissue using High Performance Liquid Chromatography. Compared to control males, neoCLOM males had higher levels of NE in the amygdala and the lateral thalamus. Compared to control females, neoCLOM females had higher levels of NE in the motor cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, and the hypothalamus. There was also an effect of SEX. Versus control males, control females had higher levels of NE in the lateral thalamus, ventral striatum, and anterior cingulate cortex. Conversely, levels of NE in the hypothalamus were lower in the control females versus males. Compared to neoCLOM males, neoCLOM females had higher levels of NE in the prefrontal cortex and the motor cortex. SEX (but not treatment) had a significant effect on corticosterone levels (rat analog of cortisol) in post-mortem trunk blood. The current finding that the elevation of NE evidenced in OCD was mirrored by increased levels of NE in brain structures of the neoCLOM rats adds support for the validity of this new animal model.https://orb.binghamton.edu/research_days_posters_spring2020/1075/thumbnail.jp

A Longitudinal Analysis of Music Tourism Impacts

Music tourism has boomed in recent decades and has been part of the rise in cultural tourism. In recent years, several communities have implemented a concert series to help promote tourism during the shoulder season, or slower months during the off-season. In this study, a longitudinal examination of several concerts of various sizes and genres spanning about three years looks at the economic impacts for the tourist destination of Panama City Beach, FL. This paper will conduct an analysis comparing the tourism development tax, hotel/motel data provided by the industry leading data resource, Smith Travel Research (STR), in order to determine the best indicator of measurement for this area. After determining the best indicator of measurement, this study will examine the impact music concerts are having on a particular tourism destination and analyze the impacts of variations throughout the different seasons

The Mechanisms and Impact of Encouraging Community Engagement in Teaching Repositories

HumBox is a community repository for humanities-focused resources. It was created using a co-design process that revealed that for the repository to successfully support a community its users needed to have an identity in the repository, control of their own resources and lightweight communication tools. Now that HumBox has been running for over two years it is possible to reflect on these ideals and the tools that support them, and in this paper we present a survey of HumBox users that has discovered that the community tools were used to refine resources, encouraged engagement and led to a perceived improvement in pedagogic practices

Controlled variation of monomer sequence-distribution in the synthesis of aromatic poly(ether ketone)s

The effects of varying the alkali metal cation in the high-temperature nucleophilic synthesis of a semi-crystalline, aromatic poly(ether ketone) have been systematically investigated, and striking variations in the sequence-distributions and thermal characteristics of the resulting polymers were found. Polycondensation of 4,4'-dihydroxybenzophenone with 1,3-bis(4-fluorobenzoyl)benzene in diphenylsulfone as solvent, in the presence of an alkali metal carbonate M2CO3 (M= Li, Na, K, or Rb) as base, affords a range of different polymers that vary in the distribution pattern of 2-ring and 3-ring monomer units along the chain. Lithium carbonate gives an essentially alternating and highly crystalline polymer, but the degree of sequence-randomisation increases progressively as the alkali metal series is descended, with rubidium carbonate giving a fully random and non-thermally-crystallisable polymer. Randomisation during polycondensation is shown to result from reversible cleavage of the ether linkages in the polymer by fluoride ions, and an isolated sample of alternating-sequence polymer is thus converted to a fully randomised material on heating with rubidium fluoride