Higher education in an era of complexity: "The tributaries project" as a higher education heterotopia

Widespread calls to develop modes of teaching and learning in higher education for a paradigm of complexity recognize higher education’s double task; namely, to graduate students not only with technical/theoretical expertise, but also the capacity for responsible citizenship. In this article we offer retrospective, philosophical reflections on a South African university engagement project, “The Tributaries Project” (2019). These reflections aim to show that such academic engagement projects, formed as “higher education heterotopia” (a concept co-opted from a 1967 lecture by Michel Foucault) are favourable sites for the second aspect of higher education’s task; that is, to foster responsible citizenship among university staff, students and graduates in an era of complexity. Further, Edgar Morin’s “seven complex lessons” detail the essential elements of this task, and by extension heterotopic spaces, such as those configured by The Tributaries Project offer ideal conditions for the implementation of Morin’s insights. In Part One, we reflect on key theoretical assumptions underlying “The Tributaries Project”, via the lens of the concept “heterotopia”. Part Two is organised by Edgar Morin’s “seven complex lessons”, with brief indications of how these lessons were implemented via the project’s diverse activities. We hope that sharing insights gained from theorizing, creating and implementing this project may inspire similar projects

Staring at the onco-exaptation: the two-faced medley of an ancient retrovirus, HERVH

Cell senescence suppresses tumors by arresting cells at risk of becoming malignant. However, this process in turn can affect the microenvironment, leading to acquisition of a senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) that renders senescent cells proinflammatory and results in tumor progression. But how is SASP controlled? In this issue of the JCI, Attig and Pape et al. describe the role of chimeric calbindin 1 (CALB1) transcripts, which are driven by an upstream human endogenous retrovirus subfamily H (HERVH) element. The authors propose that in lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC), HERVH-driven isoforms of calbindin (HERVH-CALB1) counteract SASP. As an alternative promoter, HERVH drove calbindin isoforms that prevented cancer cell senescence and associated inflammation, which was associated with better patient survival. We comment on the similarities between HERVH-CALB1-related cellular fitness in cancer and early embryogenesis and discuss the potential benefits of HERVH-driven chimeric transcripts

Superconducting Quantum Interference in Fractal Percolation Films. Problem of 1/f Noise

An oscillatory magnetic field dependence of the DC voltage is observed when a low-frequency current flows through superconducting Sn-Ge thin-film composites near the percolation threshold. The paper also studies the experimental realisations of temporal voltage fluctuations in these films. Both the structure of the voltage oscillations against the magnetic field and the time series of the electric "noise" possess a fractal pattern. With the help of the fractal analysis procedure, the fluctuations observed have been shown to be neither a noise with a large number of degrees of freedom, nor the realisations of a well defined dynamic system. On the contrary the model of voltage oscillations induced by the weak fluctuations of a magnetic field of arbitrary nature gives the most appropriate description of the phenomenon observed. The imaging function of such a transformation possesses a fractal nature, thus leading to power-law spectra of voltage fluctuations even for the simplest types of magnetic fluctuations including the monochromatic ones. Thus, the paper suggests a new universal mechanism of a "1/f noise" origin. It consists in a passive transformation of any natural fluctuations with a fractal-type transformation function.Comment: 17 pages, 13 eps-figures, Latex; title page and figures include

Scaling anomaly in cosmic string background

We show that the classical scale symmetry of a particle moving in cosmic string background is broken upon inequivalent quantization of the classical system, leading to anomaly. The consequence of this anomaly is the formation of single bound state in the coupling interval \gamma\in(-1,1). The inequivalent quantization is characterized by a 1-parameter family of self-adjoint extension parameter \omega. It has been conjectured that the formation of loosely bound state in cosmic string background may lead to the so called anomalous scattering cross section for the particles, which is usually seen in molecular physics.Comment: 4 pages,1 figur

Nonreciprocal transmission and reflection of a chirally coupled quantum dot

We report strongly non-reciprocal behaviour for quantum dot exciton spins coupled to nano-photonic waveguides under resonant laser excitation. A clear dependence of the transmission spectrum on the propagation direction is found for a chirally-coupled quantum dot, with spin up and spin down exciton spins coupling to the left and right propagation directions respectively. The reflection signal shows an opposite trend to the transmission, which a numerical model indicates is due to direction-selective saturation of the quantum dot. The chiral spin-photon interface we demonstrate breaks reciprocity of the system and opens the way to spin-based quantum optical components such as optical diodes and circulators in a chip-based solid-state environment

Study of intermediate velocity products in the Ar+Ni collisions between 52 and 95 A.MeV

Intermediate velocity products in Ar+Ni collisions from 52 to 95 A.MeV are studied in an experiment performed at the GANIL facility with the 4$\pi$ multidetector INDRA. It is shown that these emissions cannot be explained by statistical decays of the quasi-projectile and the quasi-target in complete equilibrium. Three methods are used to isolate and characterize intermediate velocity products. The total mass of these products increases with the violence of the collision and reaches a large fraction of the system mass in mid-central collisions. This mass is found independent of the incident energy, but strongly dependent on the geometry of the collision. Finally it is shown that the kinematical characteristics of intermediate velocity products are weakly dependent on the experimental impact parameter, but strongly dependent on the incident energy. The observed trends are consistent with a participant-spectator like scenario or with neck emissions and/or break-up.Comment: 37 pages, 13 figure

A Measurement of Coherent Neutral Pion Production in Neutrino Neutral Current Interactions in NOMAD

We present a study of exclusive neutral pion production in neutrino-nucleus Neutral Current interactions using data from the NOMAD experiment at the CERN SPS. The data correspond to $1.44 \times 10^6$ muon-neutrino Charged Current interactions in the energy range $2.5 \leq E_{\nu} \leq 300$ GeV. Neutrino events with only one visible $\pi^0$ in the final state are expected to result from two Neutral Current processes: coherent $\pi^0$ production, {\boldmath $\nu + {\cal A} \to \nu + {\cal A} + \pi^0$} and single $\pi^0$ production in neutrino-nucleon scattering. The signature of coherent $\pi^0$ production is an emergent $\pi^0$ almost collinear with the incident neutrino while $\pi^0$'s produced in neutrino-nucleon deep inelastic scattering have larger transverse momenta. In this analysis all relevant backgrounds to the coherent $\pi^0$ production signal are measured using data themselves. Having determined the backgrounds, and using the Rein-Sehgal model for the coherent $\pi^0$ production to compute the detection efficiency, we obtain {\boldmath $4630 \pm 522 (stat) \pm 426 (syst)$} corrected coherent-$\pi^0$ events with $E_{\pi^0} \geq 0.5$ GeV. We measure {\boldmath $\sigma (\nu {\cal A} \to \nu {\cal A} \pi^0) = [ 72.6 \pm 8.1(stat) \pm 6.9(syst) ] \times 10^{-40} cm^2/nucleus$}. This is the most precise measurement of the coherent $\pi^0$ production to date.Comment: 23 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Lett.

Observation of a new chi_b state in radiative transitions to Upsilon(1S) and Upsilon(2S) at ATLAS

The chi_b(nP) quarkonium states are produced in proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV and recorded by the ATLAS detector. Using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.4 fb^-1, these states are reconstructed through their radiative decays to Upsilon(1S,2S) with Upsilon->mu+mu-. In addition to the mass peaks corresponding to the decay modes chi_b(1P,2P)->Upsilon(1S)gamma, a new structure centered at a mass of 10.530+/-0.005 (stat.)+/-0.009 (syst.) GeV is also observed, in both the Upsilon(1S)gamma and Upsilon(2S)gamma decay modes. This is interpreted as the chi_b(3P) system.Comment: 5 pages plus author list (18 pages total), 2 figures, 1 table, corrected author list, matches final version in Physical Review Letter